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''THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS 
WITHIN YOU " 



'* Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free." — JoHx\ viii. 32. 

" Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able 
to kill the soul ; but rather fear him which is able to 
destroy both soul and body in hell." — Matt. x. 28. 

' ' Ye have been bought with a price ; be not ye the 
servants of men." — i CoR. vii. 23. 



i i 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS 
WITHIN YOU" 



CHT{ISTIANITY NOT AS A MYSTIC TiELIGION 
BUT AS A NEJV THEOTiY OF LIFE 



TRANSLATED FROM THE JTISSIAN OF 

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY 



BY 

CONSTANCE GARNETT 




NEW YORK 

THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. \ 

31 East 17TH St. (Union Square) 






Copyright, 1894, by 
THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 

All rights reserved. 



THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 



PAGE 



I. The Doctrine of Non-resistance to Evil by Force 
HAS BEEN Professed by a Minority of Men from 
THE Very Foundation of Christianity, . . i 
II. Criticisms of the Doctrine of Non-resistance to 
Evil by Force on the Part of Believers and of 
Unbelievers, , .29 

III. Christianity Misunderstood by Believers, , . 48 

IV. Christianity Misunderstood by Men of Science, . 85 
V. Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian 

Conscience, ioq 

VI. Attitude of Men of the Present Day to War, . 133 
VII. Significance of Compulsory Service, . . .164 
VIII. Doctrine of Non-resistance to Evil by Force Must 
Inevitably be Accepted by Men of the Present 

; ^^Y> 184 

IXk The Acceptance of the Christian Conception of 
Life will Emancipate Men from the Miseries 

OF OUR Pagan Life, 208 

X. Evil Cannot be Suppressed by the Physical Force 
OF THE Government— The Moral Progress of 
Humanity is Brought About not only by Indi- 
vidual Recognition of the Truth, but Also 
Through the Establishment of a Public Opinion. 235 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XI. The Christian Conception of Life has Already 
Arisen in our Society, and will Infallibly Put 
an End to the Present Organization of our Life 
Based on Force — When That Will Br, . . 264 
^ XII. Conclusion — Repent Ye, for the Kingdom of 

Heaven is at Hand, 279 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



The book I have had the privilege of translating is, 
undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable studies of the 
social and psychological condition of the modern world 
which has appeared in Europe for many years, and its 
influence is sure to be lasting and far reaching. Tolstoy's 
genius is beyond dispute. The verdict of the civilized 
world has pronounced him as perhaps the greatest novelist 
of our generation. But the philosophical and religious 
works of his later years have met with a somewhat 
indifferent reception. They have been much talked about, 
simply because they were his work, but, as Tolstoy himself 
complains, they have never been seriously discussed. I 
hardly think that he will have to repeat the complaint in 
regard to the present volume. One may disagree with his 
views, but no one can seriously deny the originality, bold- 
ness, and depth of the social conception which he develops 
with such powerful logic. The novelist has shown in this 
book the religious fervor and spiritual insight of the 
prophet ; yet one is pleased to recognize that the artist is 
not wholly lost in the thinker. The subtle intuitive per- 
ception of the psychological basis of the social position, 
the analysis of the frame of mind of oppressors and 
oppressed, and of the intoxication of Authority and Servility, 
as well as the purely descriptive passages in the last chap- 
ter — these could only have come from the author of ** War 
and Peace.*' 

The book will surely give all classes of readers much to 



VI TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

think of, and must call forth much criticism. It must be 
refuted by those who disapprove of its teaching, if they do 
not want it to have great influence. 

One cannot of course anticipate that English people, 
slow as they are to be influenced by ideas, and instinctively 
distrustful of all that is logical, will take a leap in the dark 
and attempt to put Tolstoy's theory of life into practice. 
But one may at least be sure that his destructive criticism 
of the present social and political regwie will become a 
powerful force in the work o. disintegration and social 
reconstruction which is going on around us. Many earnest 
thinkers who, like Tolstoy, are struggling to find their way 
out of the contradictions of our social order will hail him 
as their spiritual guide. The individuality of the author is 
felt in every line of his work, and even the most prejudiced 
cannot resist the fascination of his genuineness, sincerity, 
and profound earnestness. Whatever comes from a heart 
such as his, swelling with anger and pity at the sufferings 
of humanity, cannot fail to reach the hearts of others. No 
reader can put down the book without feeling himself 
better and more truth-loving for having read it. 

Many readers may be disappointed with the opening 
chapters of the book. Tolstoy disdains all attempt to cap- 
tivate the reader. He begins by laying what he considers 
to be the logical foundation of his doctrines, stringing to- 
gether quotations from little-known theological writers, and 
he keeps his own incisive logic for the later part of the book. 

One word as to the translation. Tolstoy's style in his 
religious and philosophical works differs considerably from 
that of his novels. He no longer cares about the form of 
his work, and his style is often slipshod, involved, and dif- 
fuse. It has been my aim to give a faithful reproduction 
of the original. 

Constance Garnett. 

January y 1894. 



PREFACE. 



In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title ** What 
I Believe," in which I did in fact make a sincere statement 
of my beliefs. 

In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not 
help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as 
mistaken, the Church's doctrine, which is usually called 
Christianity. 

Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short 
of the doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal 
one the absence of any commandment of non-resistance 
to evil by force. . The perversion of Christ's teaching by 
the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this 
than in any other point of difference. 

I know — as we all do — very little of the practice and the 
spoken and written doctrine of former times on the sub- 
ject of non-resistance to evil. I knew what had been said 
on the subject by the fathers of the Church — Origen, 
Tertullian, and others — I knew too of the existence of 
some so-called sects of Mennonites, Herrnhuters, and 
Quakers, who do not allow a Christian the use of weapons, 
and do not enter military service ; but I knew little of 
what had been done by these so-called sects toward 
expounding the question. 

My book was, as I had anticipated, suppressed by the 
Russian censorship ; but partly owing to my literary 
reputation, partly because the book had excited people's 
curiosity, it circulated in manuscript and in lithographed 



VlU PREFACE. 

copies in Russia and through translations abroad, and it 
evoked, on one side, from those who shared my con- 
victions, a series of essays with a great deal of informa- 
tion on the subject, on the other side a series of criticisms 
on the principles laid down in my book. 

A great deal was made clear to me by both hostile and 
sympathetic criticism, and also by the historical events 
of late years ; and I was led to fresh results and con- 
clusions, which I wish now to expound. 

First I will speak of the information I received on the 
history of the question of non-resistance to evil ; then of 
the views of this question maintained by spiritual critics, 
that is, by professed believers in the Christain religion, 
and also by temporal ones, that is, those who do not profess 
the Christian religion ; and lastly I will speak of the con- 
clusions to which I have been brought by all this in the 
light of the historical events of late years. 

L. Tolstoy. 

Yasnaia Poliana, 
May 14/26, 1893. 



"THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS 
WITHIN YOU." 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE HAS 
BEEN PROFESSED BY A MINORITY OF MEN FROM THE VERY 
FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Of the Book ** W^hat I Believe " — The Correspondence Evoked by it — 
Letters from Quakers — Garrison's Declaration — Adin Ballou, his 
Works, his Catechism— Helchitsky's " Net of Faith"— The Attitude 
of the World to Works Elucidating Christ's Teaching — Dymond's 
Book '* On War" — Musser's " Non-resistance Asserted" — Attitude of 
the Government in 1818 to Men who Refused to Serve in the Army — 
Hostile Attitude of Governments Generally and of Liberals to Those 
who Refuse to Assist in Acts of State Violence, and their Conscious 
Efforts to Silence and Suppress these Manifestations of Christian 
Non-resistance. 

Among the first responses called forth by my book were 
some letters from American Quakers. In these letters, 
expressing their sympathy with my views on the unlawful- 
ness for a Christian of war and the use of force of any 
kind, the Quakers gave me details of their own so-called 
sect, which for more than two hundred years has actually 
professed the teaching of Christ on non-resistance to evil 
by force, and does not make use of weapons in self-defense. 
The Quakers sent me also their pamphlets, journals, and 
books, from which I learnt how they had, years ago, es- 



2 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

tablished beyond doubt the duty for a Christian of fulfill- 
ing the command of non-resistance to evil by force, and 
had exposed the error of the Church's teaching in allow- 
ing war and capital punishment. 

In a whole series of arguments and texts showing that 
war — that is, the wounding and killing of men — is incon- 
sistent with a religion founded on peace and good will 
toward men, the Quakers maintain and prove that nothing 
has contributed so much to the obscuring of Christian 
truth in the eyes of the heathen, and has hindered so much 
the diffusion of Christianity through the world, as the disre- 
gard of this command by men calling themselves Christians, 
and the permission of war and violence to Christians. 

" Christ's teaching, which came to be known to men, 
not by means of violence and the sword," they say, " but 
by means of non-resistance to evil, gentleness, meekness, 
and peaceableness, can only be diffused through the world 
by the example of peace, harmony, and love among its 
followers." 

" A Christian, according to the teaching of God him- 
self, can act only peaceably toward all men, and therefore 
there can be no authority able to force the Christian to act 
in opposition to the teaching of God and to the principal 
virtue of the Christian in his relation with his neighbors." 

** The law of state necessity," they say, *^ can force 
only those to change the law of God who, for the sake of 
earthly gains, try to reconcile the irreconcilable ; but for a 
Christian who sincerely believes that following Christ's 
teaching will give him salvation, such considerations of 
state can have no force." 

Further acquaintance with the labors of the Quakers 
and their works — with Fox, Penn, and especially the work 
of Dymond (published in 1827) — showed me not only that 
the impossibility of reconciling Christianity with force and 
war had been recognized long, long ago, but that this irrec- 



IS WITHIN Your 3 

oncilability had been long ago proved so clearly and so 
indubitably that one could only wonder how this impossible 
reconciliation of Christian teaching with the use of force, 
which has been, and is still, preached in the churches, 
could have been maintained in spite of it. 

In addition to what I learned from the Quakers I 
received about the same time, also from America, some 
information on the subject from a source perfectly distinct 
and previously unknown to me. 

The son of William Lloyd Garrison, the famous champion 
of the emancipation of the negroes, wrote to me that he 
had read my book, in which he found ideas similar to those 
expressed by his father in the year 1838, and that, thinking 
it would be interesting to me to know this, he sent me a 
declaration or proclamation of ** non-resistance '' drawn 
up by his father nearly fifty years ago. 

This declaration came about under the following cir- 
cumstances : William Lloyd Garrison took part in a dis- 
cussion on the means of suppressing war in the Society for 
the Establishment of Peace among Men, which existed in 
1838 in America. He came to the conclusion that the 
establishment of universal peace can only be founded on 
the open profession of the doctrine of non-resistance to 
evil by violence (Matt. v. 39), in its full significance, as 
understood by the Quakers, with whom Garrison happened 
to be on friendly relations. Having come to this conclu- 
sion, Garrison thereupon composed and laid before the 
society a declaration, which was signed at the time — in 
1838 — by many members. 

** declaration of sentiments adopted by the 
peace convention. 

" Boston, 1838. 
" We, the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to 
the cause which we love, to the country in which we live, 



4 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

to publish a declaration expressive of the purposes we aim 
to accomplish and the measures we shall adopt to carry 
forward the work of peaceful universal reformation. 

" We do not acknowledge allegiance to any human gov- 
ernment. We recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one 
Judge and Ruler of mankind. Our country is the world, 
our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our 
nativity only as we love all other lands. The interests and 
rights of American citizens are not dearer to us than those 
of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal 
to patriotism to revenge any national insult or injury. . . 

" We conceive that a nation has no right to defend itself 
against foreign enemies or to punish its invaders, and no 
individual possesses that right in his own case, and the unit 
cannot be of greater importance than the aggregate. If 
soldiers thronging from abroad with intent to commit rapine 
and destroy life may not be resisted by the people or the 
magistracy, then ought no resistance to be offered to 
domestic troublers of the public peace or of private 
security. 

** The dogma that all the governments of the world are 
approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be 
in the United States^in Russia, in Turkey, are in accord- 
ance with his will, is no less absurd than impious. It 
makes the impartial Author of our existence unequal and 
tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the powers that be 
in any nation are actuated by the spirit or guided by the 
example of Christ in the treatment of enemies ; therefore 
they cannot be agreeable to the will of God, and therefore 
their overthrow by a spiritual regeneration of their sub- 
jects is inevitable. 

*^ We regard as unchristian and unlawful not only all wars, 
whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for 
war ; every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification, we 
regard as unchristian and unlawful ; the existence of any 



IS WITHIN Your 5 

kind of standing army, all military chieftains, all monu- 
ments commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, all 
trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honor of military 
exploits, all appropriations for defense by arms ; we regard 
as unchristian and unlawful every edict of government 
requiring of its subjects military service. 

*' Hence we deem it unlawful to bear arms, and we can- 
not hold any office which imposes on its incumbent the obli- 
gation to compel men to do right on pain of imprisonment 
or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude ourselves from 
every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human 
politics, worldly honors, and stations of authority. If we 
cannot occupy a seat in the legislature or on the bench, 
neither can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any 
such capacity. It follows that we cannot sue any man at 
law to force him to return anything he may have wrongly 
taken from us ; if he has seized our coat, we shall surrender 
him our cloak also rather than subject him to punishment. 

** We believe that the penal code of the old covenant — 
an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth — has been abro- 
gated by Jesus Christ, and that under the new covenant 
the forgiveness instead of the punishment of enemies has 
been enjoined on all his disciples in all cases whatsoever. 
To extort money from enemies, cast them into prison, exile 
or execute them, is obviously not to forgive but to take 
retribution. 

4 " The history of mankind is crowded with evidences 
proving that physical coercion is not adapted to moral re- 
generation, and that the sinful dispositions of men can be 
subdued only by love ; that evil can be exterminated only 
by good ; that it is not safe to rely upon the strength of an 
arm to preserve us from harm ; that there is great security 
in being gentle, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy ; 
that it is only the meek who shall inherit the earth ; for 
those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. 



6 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

** Hence as a measure of sound policy — of safety to 
property, life, and liberty — of public quietude and private 
enjoyment — as well as on the ground of allegiance to Him 
who is King of kings and Lord of lords, we cordially 
adopt the non-resistance principle, being confident that it 
provides for all possible consequences, is armed with 
omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over every 
assailing force. 

" We advocate no Jacobinical doctrines. The spirit of 
Jacobinism is the spirit of retaliation, violence, and 
murder. It neither fears God nor regards man. We 
would be filled with the spirit of Christ. If we abide 
by our fundamental principle of not opposing evil by 
evil we cannot participate in sedition, treason, or violence. 
We shall submit to every ordinance and every requirement 
of government, except such as are contrary to the com- 
mands of the Gospel, and in no case resist the operation of 
law, except by meekly submitting to the penalty of dis- 
obedience. 

" But while we shall adhere to the doctrine of non-resist- 
ance and passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a 
moral and spiritual sense, to assail iniquity in high places 
and in low places, to apply our principles to all existing 
evil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions, and to 
hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world will have 
become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It appears 
to us a self-evident truth that whatever the Gospel is 
designed to destroy at any period of the world, being con- 
trary to it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time 
is predicted when swords shall be beaten into plowshares 
and spears into pruning hooks, and men shall not learn the 
art of war any more, it follows that all who manufacture, 
sell, or wield these deadly weapons do thus array them- 
selves against the peaceful dominion of the Son of God on 
earth. 



IS WITHIN you:' 7 

"Having thus stated our principles, we proceed to 
specify the measures we propose to adopt in carrying our 
object into effect. 

" We expect to prevail through the Foolishness of 
Preaching. We shall endeavor to promulgate our views 
among all persons, to whatever nation, sect, or grade of 
society they may belong. Hence we shall organize public 
lectures, circulate tracts and publications, form societies, 
and petition every governing body. It will be our leading 
object to devise ways and means for effecting a radical 
change in the views, feelings, and practices of society 
respecting the sinfulness of war and the treatment of 
enemies. 

** In entering upon the great work before us, we are not 
unmindful that in its prosecution we may be called to test 
our sincerity even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us 
to insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even death itself. We 
anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresen- 
tation, and calumny. Tumults may arise against us. The 
proud and pharisaical, the ambitious and tyrannical, princi- 
palities and powers, may combine to crush us. So they 
treated the Messiah whose example we are humbly striving 
to imitate. We shall not be afraid of their terror. Our 
confidence is in the Lord Almighty and not in man. Hav- 
ing withdrawn from human protection, what can sustain us 
but that faith which overcomes the world ? We shall not 
think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try us, 
but rejoice inasmuch as we are partakers of Christ's suffer- 
ings. 

" Wherefore we commit the keeping of our souls to God. 
For every one that forsakes houses, or brethren, or sisters, 
or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for 
Christ's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit 
everlasting life. 

" Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph 



8 '• THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

of the sentiments contained in this declaration, however 
formidable may be the opposition arrayed against them, we 
hereby affix our signatures to it ; commending it to the 
reason and conscience of mankind, and resolving, in the 
strength of the Lord God, to calmly and meekly abide the 
issue.*' 

Immediately after this declaration a Society for Non- 
resistance was founded by Garrison, and a journal called 
the Non-resistant^ in which the doctrine of non-resistance 
was advocated in its full significance and in all its conse- 
quences, as it had been expounded in the declaration. 
Further information as to the ultimate destiny of the 
society and the journal I gained from the excellent biog- 
raphy of W. L. Garrison, the work of his son. 

The society and the journal did not exist for long. The 
greater number of Garrison's fellow-workers in the move- 
ment for the liberation of the slaves, fearing that the too 
radical programme of the journal, the Non-resistant^ might 
keep people away from the practical work of negro-eman- 
cipation, gave up the profession of the principle of non- 
resistance as it had been expressed in the declaration, and 
both society and journal ceased to exist. 

This declaration of Garrison's gave so powerful and 
eloquent an expression of a confession of faith of such 
importance to men, that one would have thought it must 
have produced a strong impression on people, and have 
become known throughout the world and the subject of 
discussion on every side. But nothing of the kind oc- 
curred. Not only was it unknown in Europe, even the 
Americans, who have such a high opinion of Garrison, 
hardly knew of the declaration. 

Another champion of non-resistance has been over- 
looked in the same way — the American Adin Ballou, who 
lately died, after spending fifty years in preaching this 



IS WITHIN Your 9 

doctrine. How great the ignorance is of everything relat- 
ing to the question of non-resistance may be seen from the 
fact that Garrison the son, who has written an excellent 
biography of his father in four great volumes, in answer to 
my inquiry whether there are existing now societies for 
non-resistance, and adherents of the doctrine, told me 
that as far as he knew that society had broken up, and that 
there were no adherents of that doctrine, while at the very 
time when he was writing to me there was living, at Hope- 
dale in Massachusetts, Adin Ballou, who had taken part in 
the labors of Garrison the father, and had devoted fifty 
years of his life to advocating, both orally and in print, the 
doctrine of non-resistance. Later on I received a letter 
from Wilson, a pupil and colleague of Bailouts, and entered 
into correspondence with Ballou himself. I wrote to 
Ballou, and he answered me and sent me his works. Here 
is the summary of some extracts from them : 

" Jesus Christ is my Lord and teacher,*" says Ballou in 
one of his essays exposing the inconsistency of Christians 
who allowed a right of self-defense and of warfare. *^ I 
have promised, leaving all else, to follow him, through 
good and through evil, to death itself. But I am a citizen 
of the democratic republic of the United States ; and in 
allegiance to it I have sworn to defend the Constitution of 
my country, if need be, with my life. Christ requires of 
me to do unto others as I would they should do unto me. 
The Constitution of the United States requires of me to do 
unto two millions of slaves [at that time there were slaves ; 
now one might venture to substitute the word ' laborers *] 
the very opposite of what I would they should do unto me 
— that is, to help to keep them in their present condition 
of slavery. And, in spite of this, I continue to elect or be 
elected, I propose to vote, I am even ready to be appointed 
to any office under government. That will not hinder me 
from being a Christian. I shall still profess Christianity, 



lO '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

and shall find no difficulty in carrying out my covenant 
with Christ and with the government. 

** Jesus Christ forbids me to resist evil doers, and to take 
from them an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood- 
shed for bloodshed, and life for life. 

" My government demands from me quite the opposite, 
and bases a system of self-defense on gallows, musket, and 
sword, to be used against its foreign and domestic foes. 
And the land is filled accordingly with gibbets, prisons, 
arsenals, ships of war, and soldiers. 

*^ In the maintenance and use of these expensive appli- 
ances for murder, we can very suitably exercise to the full 
the virtues of forgiveness to those who injure us, love 
toward our enemies, blessings to those who curse us, and 
doing good to those who hate us. 

"For this we have a succession of Christian priests to 
pray for us and beseech the blessing of Heaven on the 
holy work of slaughter. 

" I see all this (/. <?., the contradiction between profession 
and practice), and I continue to profess religion and take 
part in government, and pride myself on being at the same 
time a devout Christian and a devoted servant of the gov- 
ernment. I do not want to agree with these senseless 
notions of non-resistance. I cannot renounce my authority 
and leave only immoral men in control of the government. 
The Constitution says the government has the right to 
declare war, and I assent to this and support it, and swear 
that I will support it. And I do not for that cease to be a 
Christian. War, too, is a Christian duty. Is it not a Chris- 
tian duty to kill hundreds of thousands of one*s fellow-men, 
to outrage women, to raze and burn towns, and to practice 
every possible cruelty ? It is time to dismiss all these false 
sentimentalities. It is the truest means of forgiving injuries 
and loving enemies. If we only do it in the spirit of love, 
nothing can be more Christian than such murder.'* 



Is WITHIN Your tl 

In another pamphlet, entitled ** How many Men are Nec- 
essary to Change a Crime into a Virtue ? " he says : *^ One 
man may not kill. If he kills a fellow-creature, he is a 
murderer. If two, ten, a hundred men do so, they, too, are 
murderers. But a government or a nation may kill as many 
men as it chooses, and that will not be murder, but a great 
and noble action. Only gather the people together on a 
large scale, and a battle of ten thousand men becomes an 
innocent action. But precisely how many people must 
there be to make it so ? — that is the question. One man 
cannot plunder and pillage, but a whole nation can. But 
precisely how many are needed to make it permissible ? 
Why is it that one man, ten, a hundred, may not break the 
law of God, but a great number may ? *' 

And here is a version of Bailouts catechism composed 
for his flock : 

CATECHISM OF NON-RESISTANCE. 

Q. Whence is the word *' non-resistance '* derived ? 

A, From the command, " Resist not evil." (M. v. 39.) 

Q, What does this word express ? 

A, It expresses a lofty Christian virtue enjoined on us by 
Christ. 

Q. Ought the word ** non-resistance *' to be taken in its 
widest sense — that is to say, as intending that we should 
not offer any resistance of any kind to evil ? 

A. No ; it ought to be taken in the exact sense of our 
Saviour's teaching — that is, not repaying evil for evil. We 
ought to oppose evil by every righteous means in our 
power, but not by evil. 

Q. What is there to show that Christ enjoined non- 
resistance in that sense ? 

A. It is shown by the words he uttered at the same 
time. He said : ^' Ye have heard, it was said of old, An 



t2 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you 
Resist not evil. But if one smites thee on the right cheek, 
turn him the other also ; and if one will go to law with thee 
to take thy coat from thee, give him thy cloak also.*' 

Q. Of whom was he speaking in the words, " Ye have 
heard it was said of old " ? 

A. Of the patriarchs and the prophets, contained in the 
Old Testament, which the Hebrews ordinarily call the Law 
and the Prophets. 

Q, What utterances did Christ refer to in the words, " It 
was said of old " ? 

A, The utterances of Noah, Moses, and the other proph- 
ets, in which they admit the right of doing bodily harm to 
those who inflict harm, so as to punish and prevent evil 
deeds. 

Q. Quote such utterances. 

A, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood 
be shed.*' — Gen. ix. 6. 

" He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely 
put to death. . . And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt 
give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, 
foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe 
for stripe.** — Ex. xxi. 12 and 23-25. 

** He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death- 
And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath 
done, so shall it be done unto him : breach for breach, eye 
for eye, tooth for tooth.'* — Lev. xxiv. 17, 19, 20. 

**Then the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and 
behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified 
falsely against his brother, then shall ye do unto him as he 
had thought to have done unto his brother. . . And thine 
eye shall not pity ; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, 
tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." — Deut. xix. 
18, 21. 

Noah, Moses, and the Prophets taught that he who kills, 



IS WITHIN YOUy 13 

maims, or injures his neighbors does evil. To resist such 
evil, and to prevent it, the evil doer must be punished with 
death, or maiming, or some physical injury. Wrong must 
be opposed by wrong, murder by murder, injury by injury, 
evil by evil. Thus taught Noah, Moses, and the Prophets. 
But Christ rejects all this. '* I say unto you,*' is written in 
the Gospel, ^* resist not evil,'* do not oppose injury with 
injury, but rather bear repeated injury from the evil doer. 
What was permitted is forbidden. When we understand 
what kind of resistance they taught, we know exactly what 
resistance Christ forbade. 

Q, Then the ancients allowed the resistance of injury by 
injury ? 

A. Yes. But Jesus forbids it. The Christian has in no 
case the right to put to death his neighbor who has done 
him evil, or to do him injury in return. 

Q, May he kill or maim him in self-defense ? 

A, No. 

Q. May he go with a complaint to the judge that he who 
has wronged him may be punished ? 

A. No. What he does through others, he is in reality 
doing himself. 

Q. Can he fight in conflict with foreign enemies or dis- 
turbers of the peace ? 

A. Certainly not. He cannot take any part in war or in 
preparations for war. He cannot make use of a deadly 
weapon. He cannot oppose injury to injury, whether he is 
alone or with others, either in person or through other people. 

Q, Can he voluntarily vote or furnish soldiers for the 
government ? 

A, He can do nothing of that kind if he wishes to be 
faithful to Christ's law. 

Q. Can he voluntarily give money to aid a government 
resting on military force, capital punishment, and violence 
in general ? 



14 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

A, No, unless the money is destined for some special 
object, right in itself, and good both in aim and means. 

Q. Can he pay taxes to such a gove^rnment ? 

A. No ; he ought not voluntarily to pay taxes, but he 
ought not to resist the collecting of taxes. A tax is levied 
by the government, and is exacted independently of the 
will of the subject. It is impossible to resist it without 
having recourse to violence of some kind. Since the 
Christian cannot employ violence, he is obliged to offer his 
property at once to the loss by violence inflicted on it by 
the authorities. 

Q, Can a Christian give a vote at elections, or take part 
in government or law business? 

A. No ; participation in election, government, or law 
business is participation in government by force. 

Q, Wherein lies the chief significance of the doctrine of 
non-resistance ? 

A, In the fact that it alone allows of the possibility of 
eradicating evil from one*s own heart, and also from one's 
neighbor's. This doctrine forbids doing that whereby evil 
has endured for ages and multiplied in the world. He 
who attacks another and injures him, kindles in the other 
a feeling of hatred, the root of every evil. To injure 
another because he has injured us, even with the aim of 
overcoming evil, is doubling the harm for him and for one- 
self ; it is begetting, or at least setting free and inciting, 
that evil spirit which we should wish to drive out. Satan 
, /can never be driven out by Satan. Error can never be 
corrected by error, and evil cannot be vanquished by evil. 

True non-resistance is the only real resistance to evil. 
It is crushing the serpent's head. It destroys and in the 
end extirpates the evil feeling. 

Q, But if that is the true meaning of the rule of non- 
resistance, can it always be put into practice ? 

A. It can be put into practice like every virtue enjoined 



IS WITHIN Your IS 

by the law of God. A virtue cannot be practiced in all 
circumstances without self-sacrifice, privation, suffering, 
and in extreme cases loss of life itself. But he who esteems 
life more than fulfilling the will of God is already dead to 
the only true life. Trying to save his life he loses it. 
Besides, generally speaking, where non-resistance costs the 
sacrifice of a single life or of some material welfare, resist-A 
ance costs a thousand such sacrifices. I \ 

\ (Non-resistance is Salvation ; Resistance is Ruin. ■ ' V-^ 

It is incomparably less dangerous to act justly than 
unjustly, to submit to injuries than to resist them with 
violence, less dangerous even in one's relations to the 
present life. If all men refused to resist evil by evil our 
world would be happy. 

Q, But so long as only a few act thus, what will happen 
to them ? 

A. If only one man acted thus, and all the rest agreed 
to crucify him, would it not be nobler for him to die in the 
glory of non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than 
to live to wear the crown of Caesar stained with the blood 
of the slain ? However, one man, or a thousand men, 
firmly resolved not to oppose evil by evil are far more free 
from danger by violence than those who resort to violence, 
whether among civilized or savage neighbors. The robber^ 
the murderer, and the cheat will leave them in peace, 
sooner than those who oppose them with arms, and those 
who take up the sword shall perish by the sword, but those 
who seek after peace, and behave kindly and harmlessly, 
forgiving and forgetting injuries, for the most part enjoy 
peace, or, if they die, they die blessed. In this way, if all 
kept the ordinance of non-resistance, there would obviously 
be no evil nor crime. If the majority acted thus they 
would establish the rule of love and good will even over 
evil doers, never opposing evil with evil, and never resort- 
ing to force. If there were a moderately large minority of 



1 6 ** THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

such men, they would exercise such a salutary moral 
influence on society that every cruel punishment would be 
abolished, and violence and feud would be replaced by 
peace and love. Even if there were only a small minority 
of them, they would rarely experience anything worse than 
the world's contempt, and meantime the world, though 
unconscious of it, and not grateful for it, would be con- 
tinually becoming wiser and better for their unseen action 
on it. And if in the worst case some members of the 
minority were persecuted to death, in dying for the truth 
they would have left behind them their doctrine, sanctified 
^/iby the blood of their martyrdom. Peace, then, to all who 
seek peace, and may overruling love be the imperishable 
heritage of every soul who obeys willingly Christ's word, 

** Resist not evil." 

Adin Ballou. 

For fifty years Ballou wrote and published books dealing 
principally with the question of non-resistance to evil by 
force. In these works, which are distinguished by the 
clearness of their thought and eloquence of exposition, the 
question is looked at from every possible side, and the 
binding nature of this command on every Christian who 
acknowledges the Bible as the revelation of God is firmly 
established. All the ordinary objections to the doctrine of 
non-resistance from the Old and New Testaments are 
brought forward, such as the expulsion of the money- 
changers from the Temple, and so on, and arguments 
follow in disproof of them all. The practical reasonable- 
ness of this rule of conduct is shown independently of 
Scripture, and all the objections ordinarily made against 
its practicability are stated and refuted. Thus one chapter 
in a book of his treats of non-resistance in exceptional 
cases, and he owns in this connection that if there were 
cases in which the rule of non-resistance were impossible 



IS WITHIN you:' 17 

of application, it would prove that the law was not uni- 
versally authoritative. Quoting these cases, he shows that 
it is precisely in them that the application of the rule is 
both necessary and reasonable. There is no aspect of the 
question, either on his side or on his opponents', which he 
has not followed up in his writings. I mention all this to 
show the unmistakable interest which such works ought to 
have for men who make a profession of Christianity, and 
because one would have thought Ballou's work would 
have been well known, and the ideas expressed by him 
would have been either accepted or refuted ; but such has 
not been the case. 

The work of Garrison, the father, in his foundation of 
the Society of Non-resistants and his Declaration, even 
more than my correspondence with the Quakers, convinced 
me of the fact that the departure of the ruling form of 
Christianity from the law of Christ on non-resistance by 
force is an error that has long been observed and pointed 
out, and that men have labored, and are still laboring, to 
correct. Ballou's work confirmed me still more in this 
view. But the fate of Garrison, still more that of Ballou, 
in being completely unrecognized in spite of fifty years of 
obstinate and persistent work in the same direction, con- 
firmed me in the idea that there exists a kind of tacit but 
steadfast conspiracy of silence about all such efforts. 

Ballou died in August, 1890, and there was an obituary 
notice of him in an American journal of Christian views 
i^Religio -philosophical Journal^ August 23). In this lauda- 
tory notice it is recorded that Ballou was the spiritual 
director of a parish, that he delivered from eight to nine 
thousand sermons, married one thousand couples, and wrote 
about five hundred articles ; but there is not a single word 
said of the object to which he devoted his life ; even the 
word " non-resistance '* is not mentioned. Precisely as it 
was with all the preaching of the Quakers for two hundred 



1 8 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

years, and, too, with the efforts of Garrison the father, the 
foundation of his society and journal, and his Declaration, 
so it is with the life-work of Ballou. It seems just as though 
it did not exist and never had existed. 

We have an astounding example of the obscurity of 
works which aim at expounding the doctrine of non-resist- 
ance to evil by force, and at confuting those who do not 
recognize this commandment, in the book of the Tsech 
Helchitsky, which has only lately been noticed and has not 
hitherto been printed. 

Soon after the appearance of my book in German, I 
received a letter from Prague, from a professor of the uni- 
versity there, informing me of the existence of a work, 
never yet printed, by Helchitsky, a Tsech of the fifteenth 
century, entitled '^ The Net of Faith.'' In this work, the 
professor told me, Helchitsky expressed precisely the same 
view as to true and false Christianity as I had expressed 
in my book *^ What I Believe." The professor wrote to 
me that Helchitsky's work was to be published for the first 
time in the Tsech language in the Jo2irnalof The Petersburg 
Academy of Science. Since I could not obtain the book 
itself, I tried to make myself acquainted with what was 
known of Helchitsky, and I gained the following informa- 
tion from a German book sent me by the Prague professor 
and from Pypin's history of Tsech literature. This was 
Pypin's account : 

" * The Net of Faith ' is Christ's teaching, which ought 
to draw man up out of the dark depths of the sea of world- 
liness and his own iniquity. True faith consists in believ- 
ing God's Word ; but now a time has come when men mis- 
take the true faith for heresy, and therefore it is for the 
reason to point out what the true faith consists in, if any- 
one does not know this. It is hidden in darkness from 
men, and they do not recognize the true law of Christ. 

" To make this law plain, Helchitsky points to the 



IS WITHIN YOU." 19 

primitive organization of Christian society — the organiza- 
tion which, he says, is now regarded in the Roman Church 
as an abominable heresy. This primitive Church was his 
special ideal of social organization, founded on equality, 
liberty, and fraternity. Christianity, in Helchitsky's view, 
still preserves these elements, and it is only necessary for 
society to return to its pure doctrine to render unnecessary 
every other form of social order in which kings and popes 
are essential ; the law of love would alone be sufficient in 
every case. 

i '* Historically, Helchitsky attributes the degeneration of 
Christianity to the times of Constantine the Great, whom 
the Pope Sylvester admitted into the Christian Church 
with all his heathen morals and life. Constantine, in his 
turn, endowed the Pope with worldly riches and power. 
From that time forward these two ruling powers were con- 
stantly aiding one another to strive for nothing but out- 
ward glory. '' Divines and ecclesiastical dignitaries began 
to concern themselves only about subduing the whole 
world to their authority, incited men against one another 
to murder and plunder, and in creed and life reduced 
Christianity to a nullity. Helchitsky denies completely 
the right to make war and to inflict the punishment of 
death ; every soldier, even the ^ knight,' is only a violent 
evil doer — a murderer." 

The same account is given by the German book, with 
the addition of a few biographical details and some extracts 
from Helchitsky's writings. 

Having learnt the drift of Helchitsky's teaching in this 
way, I awaited all the more impatiently the appearance of 
" The Net of Faith " in the journal of the Academy. But 
one year passed, then two and three, and still the book did 
not appear. It was only in 1888 that I learned that the 
printing of the book, which had been begun, was stopped. 
I obtained the proofs of what had been printed and read 



20 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

them through. It is a marvelous book from every point 
of view. 

Its general tenor is given with perfect accuracy by 
Pypin. Helchitsky's fundamental idea is that Christianity, 
by allying itself with temporal power in the days of Con- 
stantine, and by continuing to develop in such conditions, 
has become completely distorted, and has ceased to be 
Christian altogether. Helchitsky gave the title "The Net 
of Faith " to his book, taking as his motto the verse of the 
Gospel about the calling of the disciples to be fishers of 
men; and, developing this metaphor, he says: "Christ, 
by means of his disciples, would have caught all the world 
in his net of faith, but the greater fishes broke the net and 
escaped out of it, and all the rest have slipped through the 
holes made by the greater fishes, so that the net has 
remained quite empty. The greater fishes who broke 
the net are the rulers, emperors, popes, kings, who have 
not renounced power, and instead of true Christianity have 
put on v/hat is simply a mask of it." Helchitsky teaches 
precisely what has been and is taught in these days by the 
non-resistant Mennonites and Quakers, and in former times 
by the Bogomilites, Paulicians, and many others. He 
teaches that Christianity, expecting from its adherents 
gentleness, meekness, peaceableness, forgiveness of injuries, 
turning the other cheek when one is struck, and love for 
enemies, is inconsistent with the use of force, which is an 
indispensable condition of authority. 

The Christian, according to Helchitsky's reasoning, not 
only cannot be a ruler or a soldier ; he cannot take any 
part in government nor in trade, or even be a landowner ; 
he can only be an artisan or a husbandman. 

This book is one of the few works attacking official 
Christianity which has escaped being burned. All such 
so-called heretical works were burned at the stake, to- 
gether with their authors, so that there are few ancient 



IS WITHIN Your 21 

works exposing the errors of official Christianity. The 
book has a special interest for this reason alone. But 
apart from its interest from every point of view, it is one 
of the most remarkable products of thought for its depth 
of aim, for the astounding strength and beauty of the 
national language in which it is written, and for its an- 
tiquity. And yet for more than four centuries it has 
remained unprinted, and is still unknown, except to a few 
learned specialists. 

One would have thought that all such works, whether of 
the Quakers, of Garrison, of Ballou, or of Helchitsky, 
asserting and proving as they do, on the principles of the 
Gospel, that our modern world takes a false view of 
Christ's teaching, would have awakened interest, excite- 
ment, talk, and discussion among spiritual teachers and 
their flocks alike. 

Works of this kind, dealing with the very essence of 
ChnstiarTdoctrine, ought, one would have thought, to have 
been examined and accepted as true, or refuted and re- 
jected. But nothing of the kind has occurred, and the 
same fate has been repeated with all those works. Men 
of the most diverse views, believers, and, what is surprising, 
unbelieving liberals also, as though by agreement, all pre- 
serve the same persistent silence about them, and all that 
has been done by people to explain the true meaning of 
Christ's doctrine remains either ignored or forgotten. 

But it is still more astonishing that two other books, of 
which I heard on the appearance of my book, should be so 
little known. I mean Dymond's book '^ On War,"^ublished 
for the first time in London in 1824, and Daniel Musser's 
book on ** Non-resistance," written in 1864.' It is particularly 
astonishing that these books should be unknow-n, because, 
apart from their intrinsic merits, both books treat not so 
much of the theory as of the practical application of the 
theory to life, of the attitude of Christianity to military 



22 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

service, which is especially important and interesting now 
in these days of universal conscription. 

People will ask, perhaps : How ought a subject to behave 
who believes that war is inconsistent with his religion while 
the government demands from him that he should enter 
military service ? 

This question is, I think, a most vital one, and the 
answer to it is specially important in these days of uni- 
versal conscription. All — or at least the great majority of 
the people — are Christians, and all men are called upon for 
military service. How ought a man, as a Christian, to meet 
this demand ? This is the gist of Dymond's answer : 
; *^ His duty is humbly but steadfastly to refuse to serve.** 

There are some people, who, without any definite reason- 
ing about it, conclude straightway that the responsibility of 
government measures rests entirely on those who resolve on 
them, or that the governments and sovereigns decide the 
question of what is good or bad for their subjects, and the 
duty of the subjects is merely to obey. I think that argu- 
ments of this kind only obscure men's conscience. I can- 
not take part in the councils of government, and therefore 
I am not responsible for its misdeeds. Indeed, but we are 
responsible for our own misdeeds. And the misdeeds of 
our rulers become our own, if we, knowing that they are 
misdeeds, assist in carrying them out. Those who suppose 
that they are bound to obey the government, and that the 
responsibility for the misdeeds they commit is transferred 
from them to their rulers, deceive themselves. They say : 
**We give our acts up to the will of others, and our acts 
cannot be good or bad ; there is no merit in what is good 
nor responsibility for what is evil in our actions, since they 
are not done of our own will." 

It is remarkable that the very same thing is said in the 
instructions to soldiers which they make them learn — that 
is, that the officer is alone responsible for the consequences 



IS WITHIN you:* 2^ 

of his command. But this is not right. A man cannot 
get rid of the responsibility for his own actions. And that 
is clear from the following example. If your officer com- 
mands you to kill your neighbor's child, to kill your father 
or your mother, would you obey ? If you would not obey, 
the whole argument falls to the ground, for if you can 
disobey the governors in one case, where do you draw 
the line up to which you can obey them ? There is no 
line other than that laid down by Christianity, and that 
line is both reasonable and practicable. 

And therefore we consider it the duty of every man who 
thinks war inconsistent with Christianity, meekly but 
firmly to refuse to serve in the army. And let those whose 
lot it is to act thus, remember that the fulfillment of a great 
duty rests with them. The destiny of humanity in the 
world depends, so far as it depends on men at all, on their 
fidelity to their religion. Let them confess their conviction, 
and stand up for it, and not in words alone, but in suffer- 
ings too, if need be. If you believe that Christ forbade 
murder, pay no heed to the arguments nor to the com- 
mands of those who call on you to bear a hand in it. By 
such a steadfast refusal to make use of force, you call 
down on yourselves the blessing promised to those '* who 
hear these sayings and do them,'* and the time will come 
when the world will recognize you as having aided in the 
reformation of mankind. 

Musser's book is called ^* Non-resistance Asserted," or 
** Kingdom of Christ and Kingdoms of this World Sepa- 
rated.*' This book is devoted to the same question, and 
was written when the American Government was exacting 
military service from its citizens at the tinie of J:he Civil 
War. And it has, too, a value for all time, dealing with 
the question how, in such circumstances, people should and 
can refuse to enter military service. Here is the tenor of 
the author's introductory remarks : " It is well known that 



24 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

there are many persons in the United States who refuse to 
fight on grounds of conscience. They are called the 
* defenseless/ or ^ non-resistant * Christians. These Chris- 
tians refuse to defend their country, to bear arms, or at the 
call'of government to make war on its enemies. Till lately 
this religious scruple seemed a valid excuse to the govern- 
ment, and those who urged it were let off service. But at 
the beginning of our Civil War public opinion was agitated 
on this subject. It was natural that persons who con- 
sidered it their duty to bear all the hardships and dangers 
of war in defense of their country should feel resentment 
against those persons who had for long shared with them 
the advantages of the protection of the government, and 
who now in time of need and danger would not share in 
bearing the labors and dangers of its defense. It was even 
natural that they should declare the attitude of such men 
monstrous, irrational, and suspicious." 

A host of orators and writers, our author tells us, arose 
to oppose this attitude, and tried to prove the sinfulness of 
non-resistance, both from Scripture and on common-sense 
grounds. And this was perfectly natural, and in many 
cases the authors were right — right, that is, in regard to 
persons who did not renounce the benefits they received 
from the government and tried to avoid the hardships of 
military service, but not right in regard to the principle of 
non-resistance itself. Above all, our author proves the 
binding nature of the rule of non-resistance for a Christian, 
pointing out that this command is perfectly clear, and is 
enjoined upon every Christian by Christ without possibility 
of misinterpretation. '^ Bethink yourselves whether it is 
righteous to obey man more than God," said Peter and 
John. And this is precisely what ought to be the attitude 
of every man who wishes to be Christian to the claim on 
him for military service, when Christ has said, " Resist not 
evil by force." As for the question of the principle itself, 



IS WITHIN Your 25 

the author regards that as decided. As to the second 
question, whether people have the right to refuse to serve 
in the army who have not refused the benefits conferred by 
a government resting on force, the author considers it in 
detail, and arrives at the conclusion that a Christian follow- 
ing the law of Christ, since he does not go to war, ought 
not either to take advantage of any of the institutions of 
government, courts of law, or elections, and that in his 
private concerns he must not have recourse to the authori- 
ties, the police, or the law. Further on in the book he 
treats of the relation of the Old Testament to the New, the 
value of government for those who are Christians, and 
makes some observations on the doctrine of non-resistance 
and the attacks made on it. The author concludes his 
book by saying : ^* Christians do not need government, and 
therefore they cannot either obey it in what is contrary to 
Christ's teaching nor, still less, take part in it." Christ took 
his disciples out of the world, he says. They do not expect 
worldly blessings and worldly happiness, but they expect 
eternal life. The Spirit in whom they live makes them 
contented and happy in every position. If the world 
tolerates them, they are always happy. If the world will 
not leave them in peace, they will go elsewhere, since they 
are pilgrims on the earth and they have no fixed place of 
habitation. They believe that "the dead may bury their 
dead.'* One thing only is needful for them, " to follow 
their Master." 

Even putting aside the question as to the principle laid 
down in these two books as to the Christian's duty in his 
attitude to war, one cannot help perceiving the practical 
importance and the urgent need of deciding the ques- 
tion. 

There are people, hundreds of thousands of Quakers, 
Mennonites,all our Douhobortsi, Molokani, and others who 
do not belong to any definite sect, who consider that the 



26 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

use of force — and, consequently, military service — is incon- 
sistent with Christianity. Consequently there are every 
year among us in Russia some men called upon for military 
service who refuse to serve on the ground of their religious 
convictions. Does the government let them off then ? No. 
Does it compel them to go, and in case of disobedience 
punish them ? No. This was how the government 
treated them in 1818. Here is an extract from the diary 
of Nicholas Myravyov of Kars, which was not passed by 
the censor, and is not known in Russia : 

"TiFLis, October 2, 1818. 
" In the morning the commandant told me that five 
peasants belonging to a landowner in the Tamboff govern- 
ment had lately been sent to Georgia. These men had 
been sent for soldiers, but they would not serve ; they had 
been several times flogged and made to run the gauntlet, 
but they would submit readily to the crudest tortures, and 
even to death, rather than serve. * Let us go,* they said, 
*and leave us alone ; we will not hurt anyone ; all men are 
equal, and the Tzar is a man like us ; why should we 
pay him tribute ; why should I expose my life to danger 
to kill in battle some man who has done me no harm ? 
You can cut us to pieces and we will not be soldiers. 
He who has compassion on us will give us charity, but as 
for the government rations, we have not had them and we 
do not want to have them.* These were the words of those 
peasants, who declare that there are numbers like them in 
Russia. They brought them four times before the Com- 
mittee of Ministers, and at last decided to lay the matter 
before the Tzar, who gave orders that they should be taken 
to Georgia for correction, and commanded the commander- 
in-chief to send him a report every month of their 
gradual success in bringing these peasants to a better 
mind." 



IS WITHIN you:' 27 

How the correction ended is not known, as the whole 
episode indeed was unknown^ having been kept in profound 
secrecy. 

This was how the government behaved seventy-five 
years ago — this is how it has behaved in a great number of 
cases, studiously concealed from the people. And this is 
how the government behaves now, except in the case of the 
German Mennonites, living in the province of Kherson, 
whose plea against military service is considered well 
grounded. They are made to work off their term of serv- 
ice in labor in the forests. 

But in the recent cases of refusal on the part of Men- 
nonites to serve in the army on religious grounds, the 
government authorities have acted in the following 
manner : >_^ 

To begin with, they have recourse to every means of 
coercion used in our times to ^' correct *' the culprit and 
bring him to ^**a better mind/' and these measures are car- 
ried out with the greatest secrecy. I know that in the case 
of one man who declined to serve in 1884 in Moscow, the 
official correspondence on the subject had two months after 
his refusal accumulated into a big folio, and was kept ab- 
solutely secret among the Ministry. 

They usually begin by sending the culprit to the priests, 
and the latter, to their shame be it said, always exhort him 
to obedience. But since the exhortation in Christ's name 
to forswear Christ is for the most part unsuccessful, after 
he has received the admonitions of the spiritual authorities, 
they send him to the gendarmes, and the latter, finding, as 
a rule, no political cause for offense in him, dispatch him 
back again, and then he is sent to the learned men, to the 
doctors, and to the madhouse. During all these vicissitudes 
he is deprived of liberty and has to endure every kind of 
humiliation and suffering as a convicted criminal. (All this 
has been repeated in four cases.) The doctors let him out 



28 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

of the madhouse, and then every kind of secret shift is em- 
ployed to prevent him from going free — whereby others 
would be encouraged to refuse to serve as he has done — 
and at the same time to avoid leaving him among the 
soldiers, for fear they too should learn from him that mili- 
tary service is not at all their duty by the law of God, as 
they are assured, but quite contrary to it. 

The most convenient thing for the government would be 
to kill the non-resistant by flogging him to death or some 
other means, as was done in former days. But to put a 
man openly to death because he believes in the creed we 
all confess is impossible. To let a man alone who has 
refused obedience is also impossible. And so the govern- 

\ment tries either to compel the man by ill-treatment to 
renounce Christ, or in some way or other to get rid of him 
unobserved, without openly putting him to death, and to 
hide somehow both the action and the man himself from 
other people. And so all kinds of shifts and wiles and cruel- 

'ties are set on foot against him. They either send him to 
the frontier or provoke him to insubordination, and then 
try him for breach of discipline and shut him up in the 
prison of the disciplinary battalion, where they can ill treat 
him freely unseen by anyone, or they declare him mad, and 
lock him up in a lunatic asylum. They sent one man in 
this way to Tashkend — that is, they pretended to transfer 
him to the Tashkend army ; another to Omsk ; a third 
they convicted of insubordination and shut up in prison ; 
a fourth they sent to a lunatic asylum. 

Everywhere the same story is repeated. Not only the 
government, but the great majority of liberal, advanced 
people, as they are called, studiously turn away from every- 
thing that has been said, written, or done, or is being done 
by men to prove the incompatibility of force in its most 
awful, gross, and glaring form — in the form, that is, of an 
army of soldiers prepared to murder anyone, whoever it 



IS wiTHiN you:' ^9 

may be — with the teachings of Christianity, or even of the 
humanity which society professes as its creed. 

So that the information I have gained of the attitude of 
the higher ruling classes, not only in Russia but in Europe 
and America, toward the elucidation of this question has 
convinced me that there exists in these ruling classes a con- 
sciously hostile attitude to true Christianity, which is shown 
pre-eminently in their reticence in regard to all manifesta- 
tions of it. 

CHAPTER II. 

CRITICISMS OF THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO 
EVIL BY FORCE ON THE PART OF BELIEVERS AND OF 
UNBELIEVERS. 

Fate of the Book ** What I Believe " — Evasive Character of Religious 
Criticisms of Principles of my Book — ist Reply : Use of Force not 
Opposed to Christianity — 2d Reply: Use of Force Necessary to 
Restrain Evil Doers — 3d Reply : Duty of Using Force in Defense of 
One's Neighbor — 4th Reply : The Breach of the Command of Non- 
resistance to be Regarded Simply as a Weakness — 5th Reply : Reply 
Evaded by Making Believe that the Question has long been Decided 
— To Devise such Subterfuges and to take Refuge Behind the Author- 
ity of the Church, of Antiquity, and of Religion is all that Ecclesias- 
tical Critics can do to get out of the Contradiction between Use of 
Force and Christianity in Theory and in Practice — General Attitude 
of the Ecclesiastical World and of the Authorities to Profession of 
True Christianity — General Character of Russian Freethinking Critics 
— Foreign Freethinking Critics — Mistaken Arguments of these Critics 
the Result of Misunderstanding the True Meaning of Christ's Teaching. 

The impression I gained of a desire to conceal, to hush 
up, what I had tried to express in my book, led me to judge 
the book itself afresh. 

On its appearance it had, as I had anticipated, been for- 
bidden, and ought therefore by law to have been burnt. 
But, at the same time, it was discussed among officials, and 



30 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

circulated in a great number of manuscript and lithograph 
copies, and in translations printed abroad. 

And very quickly after the book, criticisms, both religious 
and secular in character, made their appearance, and these 
the government tolerated, and even encouraged. So that 
the refutation of a book which no one was supposed to know 
anything about was even chosen as the subject for theolog- 
, ical dissertations in the academies. 

The criticisms of my book, Russian and foreign alike, fall 
under two general divisions — the religious criticisms of men 
who regard themselves as believers, and secular criticisms, 
that is, those of freethinkers. 

I will begin with the first class. In my book I made it an 
accusation against the teachers of the Church that their 
teaching is opposed to Christ's commands clearly and defi- 
nitely expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, and opposed 
in especial to his command in regard to resistance to evil, 
and that in this way they deprive Christ's teaching of all 
I value. The Church authorities accept the teaching of the 
Sermon on the Mount on non-resistance to evil by force as 
divine revelation; and therefore one would have thought 
that if they felt called upon to write about my book at all, 
they would have found it inevitable before everything else 
to reply to the principal point of my charge against them, 
and to say plainly, do they or do they not admit the teach- 
ing of the Sermon on the Mount and the commandment of 
non-resistance to evil as binding on a Christian. And they 
were bound to answer this question, not after the usual 
fashion (/. ^., **that although on the one side one cannot 
absolutely deny, yet on the other side one cannot again fully 
assent, all the more seeing that," etc., etc.). No; they 
should have answered the question as plainly as it was put 
in my book — Did Christ really demand from his disciples 
that they should carry out what he taught them in the Ser- 
mon on the Mount? And can a Christian, then, or can he 



IS WITHIN Your 31 

not, always remaining a Christian, go to law or make any 
use of the law, or seek his own protection in the law? And 
can the Christian, or can he not, remaining a Christian, take 
part in the administration of government, using compulsion 
against his neighbors? And — the most important question 
hanging over the heads of all of us in these days of universal 
military service — can the Christian, or can he not, remain- 
ing a Christian, against Christ's direct prohibition, promise 
obedience in future actions directly opposed to his teaching? 
And can he, by taking his share of service in the army, pre- 
pare himself to murder men, and even actually murder them? 

These questions were put plainly and directly, and seemed 
to require a plain and direct answer; but in all the criti- 
cisms of my book there was no such plain and direct answer. 
No ; my book received precisely the same treatment as all 
the attacks upon the teachers of the Church for their defec- 
tion from the Law of Christ of which history from the days 
of Constantine is full. 

A very great deal was said in connection with my book 
of my having incorrectly interpreted this and other passages 
of the Gospel, of my being in error in not recognizing the 
Trinity, the redemption, and the immortality of the soul. A 
very great deal was said, but not a word about the one thing 
which for every Christian is the most essential question in 
life — how to reconcile the duty of forgiveness, meekness, 
patience, and love for all, neighbors and enemies alike, 
which is so clearly expressed in the words of our teacher, 
and in the heart of each of us — how to reconcile this duty 
with the obligation of using force in war upon men of our 
own or a foreign people. 

All that are worth calling answers to this question can be 
brought under the following five heads. I have tried to 
bring together in this connection all I could, not only from 
the criticisms on my book, but from what has been written 
in past times on this theme. 



32 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

The first and crudest form of reply consists in the bold 
assertion that the use of force is not opposed by the teach- 
ing of Christ; that it is permitted, and even enjoined, on 
the Christian by the Old and New Testaments. 

Assertions of this kind proceed, for the most part, from 
men who have attained the highest ranks in the governing 
or ecclesiastical hierarchy, and who are consequently per- 
fectly assured that no one will dare to contradict their asser- 
tion, and that if anyone does contradict it they will hear 
nothing of the contradiction. These men have, for the^ 
most part, through the intoxication of power, so lost the/ 
right idea of what that Christianity is in the name of which V 
they hold their position that what is Christian in Chris- \ 
tianity presents itself to them as heresy, while everything iftJ 
the Old and New Testaments which can be distorted into an 
antichristian and heathen meaning they regard as the foun- 
dation of Christianity. In support of their assertion that 
Christianity is not opposed to the use of force, these men 
usually, with the greatest audacity, bring together all the 
most obscure passages from the Old and New Testaments, 
interpreting them in the most unchristian way — the punish- 
ment of Ananias and Sapphira, of Simon the Sorcerer, etc. 
They quote all those sayings of Christ's which can possibly 
be interpreted as justification of cruelty: the expulsion from 
the Temple; **It shall be more tolerable for the land of 
Sodom than for this city,'' etc., etc. According to these 
people's notions, a Christian government is not in the least 
bound to be guided by the spirit of peace, forgiveness of 
injuries, and love for enemies. 

To refute such an assertion is useless, because the very 
people who make this assertion refute themselves, or, rather, 
renounce Christ, inventing a Christianity and a Christ of 
their own in the place of him in whose name the Church 
itself exists, as well as their office in it. If all men were to 
learn that the Church professes to believe in a Christ of 



/S WITHIN Your 33 

punishment and warfare, not of forgiveness, no one would 
believe in the Church and it could not prove to anyone what 
it is trying to prove. 

The second, somewhat less gross, form of argument con- 
sists in declaring that, though Christ did indeed preach that 
we should turn the left cheek, and give the cloak also, and 
this is the highest moral duty, yet that there are wicked 
men in the world, and if these wicked men were not 
restrained by force, the whole world and all good men would 
come to ruin through them. This argument I found for the 
first time in John Chrysostom, and I show how he is mis- 
taken in my book "What I Believe." 

This argument is ill grounded, because if we allow our- 
selves to regard any men as intrinsically wicked men, then 
in the first place we annul, by so doing, the whole idea of 
the Christian teaching, according to which we are all equals 
and brothers, as sons of one Father in heaven. Secondly, 
it is ill founded, because even if to use force against wicked 
men had been permitted by God, since it is impossible to 
find a perfect and unfailing distinction by which one could 
positively know the wicked from the good, so it would come 
to all individual men and societies of men mutually regard- 
ing each other as wicked men, as is the case now. Thirdly, 
even if it were possible to distinguish the wicked from the 
good unfailingly, even then it would be impossible to kill or 
injure or shut up in prison these wicked men, because there 
would be no one in a Christian society to carry out such 
punishment, since every Christian, as a Christian, has been 
commanded to use no force against the wicked. 

The third kind of answer, still more subtle than the pre- 
ceding, consists in asserting that though the command of 
non-resistance to evil by force is binding on the Christian 
when the evil is directed against himself personally, it ceases 
to be binding when the evil is directed against his neigh- 
bors, and that then the Christian is not only not bound to 



34 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

fulfill the commandment, but is even bound to act in oppo- 
sition to it in defense of his neighbors, and to use force 
(against transgressors by force. This assertion is an abso- 
lute assumption, and one cannot find in all Christ's teaching 
any confirmation of such an argument. Such an argument 
is not only a limitation, but a direct contradiction and nega- 
tion of the commandment. If every man has the right to 
have recourse to force in face of a danger threatening an- 
other, the question of the use of force is reduced to a ques- 
tion of the definition of danger for another. If my private 
judgment is to decide the question of what is danger for 
another, there is no occasion for the use of force which 
could not be justified on the ground of danger threatening 
some other man. They killed and burnt witches, they 
killed aristocrats and girondists, they killed their enemies, 
because those who were in authority regarded them as dan- 
gerous for the people. 

If this important limitation, which fundamentally under- 
mines the whole value of the commandment, had entered 
into Christ's meaning, there must have been mention of it 
somewhere. This restriction is made nowhere in our 
Saviour's life or preaching. On the contrary, warning is 
given precisely against this treacherous and scandalous 
restriction which nullifies the commandment. The error 
and impossibility of such a limitation is shown in the Gospel 
with special clearness in the account of the judgment of 
Caiaphas, who makes precisely this distinction. He 
acknowledged that it was wrong to punish the innocent 
Jesus, but he saw in him a source of danger not for himself, 
but for the whole people, and therefore he said: It is better 
for one man to die, that the whole people perish not. And 
the erroneousness of such a limitation is still more clearly 
expressed in the words spoken to Peter when he tried to 
resist by force evil directed against Jesus (Matt. xxvi. 52). 
Peter was not defending himself, but his beloved and 



IS WITHIN Your 35 

heavenly Master. And Christ at once reproved hun for 
this, saying, that he who takes up the sword shall perish by 
the sword. 

Besides, apologies for violence used against one's neighbor 
in defense of another neighbor from greater violence are 
always untrustworthy, because when force is used against 
one who has not yet carried out his evil intent, I can never 
know which would be greater — the evil of my act of violence _, 
or of the act I want to prevent. We kill the criminal that' 
society may be rid of him, and we never know whether the 
criminal of to-day would not have been a changed man to- 
morrow, and whether our punishment of him is not useless 
cruelty. We shut up the dangerous — as we think — mem- 
ber of society, but the next day this man might cease to be 
dangerous and his imprisonment might be for nothing. I 
see that a man I know to be a ruffian is pursuing a young 
girl. I have a gun in my hand — I kill the ruffian and save 
the girl. But the death or the wounding of the ruffian has 
positively taken place, while what would have happened if 
this had not been I cannot know. And what an immense 
mass of evil must result, and indeed does result, from allow-/ / 
ing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen. ^ 
Ninety-nine per cent, of the evil of the world is founded on 
this reasoning — from the Inquisition to dynamite bombs,; 
and the executions or punishments of tens of thousands of 
political criminals. > 

A fourth, still more refined, reply to the question, What rp 
ought to be the Christian's attitude to Christ's command of 
non-resistance to evil by force? consists in declaring that 
they do not deny the command of non-resistance to evil, 
but recognize it ; but they only do not ascribe to this com- 
mand the special exclusive value attached to it by sectarians. 
To regard this command as the indispensable condition of 
Christian life, as Garrison, Ballon, Dymond, the Quakers, 
the Mennonites, and the Shakers do now, and as the Moravian 



^6 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

brothers, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Bogomilites, 
and the Paulicians did in the past, is a one-sided heresy. 
This command has neither more nor less value than all the 
other commands, and the man who through weakness trans- 
gresses any command whatever, the command of non-resist- 
ance included, does not cease to be a Christian if he hold the 
true faith. This is a very skillful device, and many people 
who wish to be deceived are easily deceived by it. The 
device consists in reducing a direct conscious denial of a 
command to a casual breach of it. But one need only com- 
pare the attitude of the teachers of the Church to this and 
to other commands which they really do recognize, to be 
convinced that their attitude to this is completely different 
from their attitude to other duties. 

The command against fornication they do really recognize, 
and consequently they do not admit that in any case forni- 
cation can cease to be wrong. The Church preachers never 
point out cases in which the command against fornication 
can be broken, and always teach that we must avoid seduc- 
tions which lead to temptation to fornication. But not so 
with the command of non-resistance. All church preachers 
recognize cases in which that command can be broken, and 
teach the people accordingly. And they not only do not 
teach that we should avoid temptations to break it, chief of 
which is the military oath, but they themselves administer 
it. The preachers of the Church never in any other case 
advocate the breaking of any other commandment. But in 
connection with the commandment of non-resistance they 
openly teach that we must not understand it too literally, 
but that there are conditions and circumstances in which we 
must do the direct opposite, that is, go to law, fight, punish. 
So that occasions for fulfilling the commandment of non- 
resistance to evil by force are taught for the most part as 
occasions for not fulfilling it. The fulfillment of this com- 
mand, they say, is very difficult and pertains only to per- 



IS WITHIN Your 37 

fection. And how can it not be difficult, when the breach 
of it is not only not forbidden, but law courts, prisons, can- 
nons, guns, armies, and wars are under the immediate sanc- 
tion of the Church? It cannot be true, then, that this 
command is recognized by the preachers of the Church as 
on a level with other commands. 

The preachers of the Church clearly do not recognize it ; 
only not daring to acknowledge this, they try to conceal 
their not recognizing it. 

So much for the fourth reply. 

The fifth kind of answer, which is the subtlest, the most 
often used, and the most effective, consists in avoiding 
answering, in making believe that this question is one which 
has long ago been decided perfectly clearly and satisfac- 
torily, and that it is not worth while to talk about it. This 
method of reply is employed by all the more or less culti- 
vated religious writers, that is to say, those who feel the 
laws of Christ binding for themselves. Knowing that the 
contradiction existing between the teaching of Christ which 
we profess with our lips and the whole order of our lives 
cannot be removed by words, and that touching upon it can 
only make it more obvious, they, with more or less ingenuity, 
evade it, pretending that the question of reconciling Chris- 
tianity with the use of force has been decided already, or 
does not exist at all.* 

The majority of religious critics of my book use this fifth 
method of replying to it. I could quote dozens of such 

* I only know one work which differs somewhat from this general 
definition, and that is not a criticism in the precise meaning of the word, 
but an article treating of the same subject and having my book in view. 
I mean the pamphlet of Mr. Troizky (published at Kazan), "A Sermon for 
the People." The author obviously accepts Christ's teaching in its true 
meaning. He says that the prohibition of resistance to evil by force 
means exactly what it does mean ; and the same with the prohibition of 
swearing. He does not, as others do, deny the meaning of Christ's 



3 8 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

critics, in all of whom, without exception, we find the same 
thing repeated: everything is discussed except what consti- 
tutes the principal subject of the book. As a characteristic 
example of such criticisms, I will quote the article of a well- 
known and ingenious English writer and preacher — Farrar — 
who, like many learned theologians, is a great master of the 
\ art^of circuitously evading a question. The article was pub- 
lished in an American journal, the Forum^ in Ocober, 1888. 
After conscientiously explaining in brief the contents of 
my book, Farrar says: * 'Tolstoy came to the conclusion that 
a coarse deceit had been palmed upon the world when these 
words, 'Resist not evil,' were held by civil society to be 
compatible with war, courts of justice, capital punishment, 
divorce, oaths, national prejudice, and, indeed, with most 
of the institutions of civil and social life. He now believes 
that the kingdom of God would come if all men kept these 
five commandments of Christ, viz.: i. Live in peace with 
all men. 2. Be pure. 3. Take no oaths. 4. Resist not 
evil. 5. Renounce national distinctions. 

"Tolstoy," he says, ''rejects the inspiration of the Old 
Testament; hence he rejects the chief doctrines of the 
Church — that of the Atonement by blood, the Trinity, the 
descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, and his trans- 
mission through the priesthood." And he recognizes only 
the words and commands of Christ. "But is this interpre- 
tation of Christ a true one?" he says. "Are all men bound 
to act as Tolstoy teaches — /. ^., to carry out these five com- 

teaching, but unfortunately he does not draw from this admission the 
inevitable deductions which present themselves spontaneously in our life 
when we understand Christ's teaching in that way. If we must not 
oppose evil by force, nor swear, everyone naturally asks, '' How, then, 
about military service ? and the oath of obedience ? '* To this question 
the author gives no reply ; but it must be answered . And if he cannot 
answer, then he would do better not to speak on the subject at all, as 
such silence leads to error. 



IS WITHIN Your 39 

mandments of Christ?*' You expect, then, that in answer 
to this essential question, which is the only one that could 
induce a man to write an article about the book, he will say- 
either that this interpretation of Christ's teaching is true 
and we ought to folloAV it, or he will say that such an inter- 
pretation is untrue, will show why, and will give some other 
correct interpretation of those words which I interpret incor- 
rectly. But nothing of the kind is done. Farrar only 
expresses his '^belief* that, '^though actuated by the noblest 
sincerity, Count Tolstoy has been misled by partial and one- 
sided interpretations of the meaning of the Gospel and the 
mind and will of Christ." What this error consists in is 
not made clear; it is only said: '*To enter into the proof of 
this is impossible in this article, for I have already exceeded 
the space at my command." 

And he concludes, in a tranquil spirit: 

** Meanwhile, the reader who feels troubled lest it should 
be his duty also to forsake all the conditions of his life and 
to take up the position and work of a common laborer, may 
rest for the present on the principle, securus judicat orbis 
ierrarum. With few and rare exceptions," he continues, 
*'the whole of Christendom, from the days of the Apostles 
down to our own, has come to the firm conclusion that it 
was the object of Christ to lay down great eternal principles,^ 
but not to disturb the bases and revolutionize the institu- 
tions of all human society, which themselves rest on divine 
sanctions as well as on inevitable conditions. Were it my 
object to prove how untenable is the doctrine of communism, 
based by Count Tolstoy upon the divine paradoxes \sic\ 
which can be interpreted only on historical principles in 
accordance with the whole method of the teaching of Jesus, 
it would require an ampler canvas than I have here at my 
disposal." What a pity he has not **an ampler canvas at 
his disposal" ! And what a strange thing it is that for all 
these last fifteen centuries no one has had **a canvas ample 



40 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

enough" to prove that Christ, whom we profess to believe 
in, says something utterly unlike what he does say! Still, 
they could prove it if they wanted to. But it is not worth 
while to prove what everyone knows; it is enough to say, 
* ' securus judicat or bis terrarum, ' * 

And of this kind, without exception, are all the criticisms 
of educated believers, who must, as such, understand the 
danger of their position. The sole escape from it for them 
lies in their hope that they may be able, by using the 
authority of the Church, of antiquity, and of their sacred 
office, to overawe the reader and draw him away from the 
idea of reading the Gospel for himself and thinking out the 
question in his own mind for himself. And in this they are 
successful ; for, indeed, how could the notion occur to any- 
one that all that has been repeated from century to century 
with such earnestness and solemnity by all those arch- 
deacons, bishops, archbishops, holy synods, and popes, is 
all of it a base lie and a calumny foisted upon Christ by 
them for the sake of keeping safe the money they must have 
to live luxuriously on the necks of other men? And it is a 
lie and a calumny so transparent that the only way of keep- 
ing it up consists in overawing people by their earnestness, 
their conscientiousness. It is just what has taken place of 
late years at recruiting sessions ; at a table before the zert- 
zal — the symbol of the Tzar's authority — in the seat of 
honor under the life-size portrait of the Tzar, sit dignified 
old officials, wearing decorations, conversing freely and 
easily, writing notes, summoning men before them, and giv- 
ing orders. Here, wearing a cross on his breast, near them, 
is a prosperous-looking old priest in a silken cassock, with 
long gray hair flowing on to his cope, before a lectern who 
wears the golden cross and has a Gospel bound in gold. 

They summon Ivan Petroff. A young man comes in, 
wretchedly, shabbily dressed, and in terror, the muscles of 
his face working, his eyes bright and restless; and in a 



75 WITHIN Your 41 

broken voice, hardly above a whisper, he says: "I — by 
Christ's law — as a Christian — I cannot.'* "What is he 
muttering?" asks the president, frowning impatiently 
and raising his eyes from his book to listen. "Speak 
louder," the colonel with shining epaulets shouts to him. 

"I — I as a Christian " And at last it appears that the 

young man refuses to serve in the army because he is a 
Christian. "Don't talk nonsense. Stand to be measured. 
Doctor, may I trouble you to measure him. He is all 
right?" "Yes." ''Reverend father, administer the oath 
to him." 

No one is the least disturbed by what the poor scared 
young man is muttering. They do not even pay attention 
to it. "They all mutter something, but we've no time to 
listen to it, we have to enroll so many.'* 

The recruit tries to say something still. "It*s opposed to 
the law of Christ.'* "Go along, go along; we know without 
your help what is opposed to the law and what's not; and 
you soothe his mind, reverend father, soothe him. Next: 
Vassily Nikitin.** And they lead the trembling youth away. 
And it does not strike anyone — the guards, or Vassily Niki- 
tin, whom they are bringing in, or any of the spectators of 
this scene — that these inarticulate words of the young man, 
at once suppressed by the authorities, contain the truth, and 
that the loud, solemnly uttered sentences of the calm, self- 
confident official and the priest are a lie and a decep- 
tion. 

Such is the impression produced not only by Farrar*s 
article, but by all those solemn sermons, articles, and books 
which make their appearance from all sides directly there is 
anywhere a glimpse of truth exposing a predominant false- 
hood. At once begins the series of long, clever, ingenious, 
and solemn speeches and writings, which deal with ques- 
tions nearly related to the subject, but skillfully avoid 
touching the subject itself, 



42 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

That is the essence of the fifth and most effective means 
of getting out of the contradictions in which Church Chris- 
tianity has placed itself, by professing its faith in Christ's 
teaching in words, while it denies it in its life, and teaches 
people to do the same. 

Those who justify themselves by the first method, directly, 
crudely asserting that Christ sanctioned violence, wars, and 
murder, repudiate Christ's doctrine directly ; those who find 
their defense in the second, the third, or the fourth method 
are confused and can easily be convicted of error; but this 
last class, who do not argue, who do not condescend to 
argue about it, but take shelter behind their own grandeur, 
and make a show of all this having been decided by them or 
at least by someone long ago, and no longer offering a possi- 
bility of doubt to anyone — they seem safe from attack, and 
will be beyond attack till men come to realize that they are 
under the narcotic influence exerted on them by govern- 
ments and churches, and are no longer affected by it. 

Such was the attitude of the spiritual critics — /. ^., those 
professing faith in Christ — to my book. And their attitude 
could not have been different. They are bound to take up 
this attitude by the contradictory position in which they find 
themselves between belief in the divinity of their Master and 
disbelief in his clearest utterances, and they want to escape 
from this contradiction. So that one cannot expect from 
them free discussion of the very essence of the question- 
that is, of the change in men's life which must result from 
applying Christ's teaching to the existing order of the world. 
Such free discussion I only expected from worldly, free- 
thinking critics who are not bound to Christ's teaching in 
any way, and can therefore take an independent view of it. 
I had anticipated that freethinking writers would look at 
Christ, not merely, like the Churchmen, as the founder of 
a religion of personal salvation, but, to express it in their 
language, as a reformer who laid down new principles of life 



/s WITHIN you:' 43 

and destroyed the old, and whose reforms are not yet com- 
plete, but are still in progress even now. 

Such a view of Christ and his teaching follows from my 
book. But to my astonishment, out of the great number of 
critics of my book there was not one, either Russian or for- 
eign, who treated the subject from the side from which it 
was approached in the book — that is, who criticised Christ's 
doctrines as philosophical, moral, and social principles, to 
use their scientific expressions. This was not done in a 
single criticism. The freethinking Russian critics taking 
my book as though its whole contents could be reduced to 
non-resistance to evil, and understanding the doctrine of 
non-resistance to evil itself (no doubt for greater con- 
venience in refuting it) as though it would prohibit every 
kind of conflict with evil, fell vehemently upon this doctrine, 
and for some years past have been very successfully proving 
that Christ's teaching is mistaken in so far as it forbids 
resistance to evil. Their refutations of this hypothetical 
doctrine of Christ were all the more successful since they 
knew beforehand that their arguments could not be contested 
or corrected, for the censorship, not having passed the book, 
did not pass articles in its defense. 

It is a remarkable thing that among us, where one cannot 
say a word about the Holy Scriptures without the prohibi- 
tion of the censorship, for some years past there have been 
in all the journals constant attacks and criticisms on the 
command of Christ simply and directly stated in Matt. v. 39. 
The Russian advanced critics, obviously unaware of all that 
has been done to elucidate the question of non-resistance, 
and sometimes even imagining apparently that the rule ofl 
non-resistance to evil had been invented by me personally, 
fell foul of the very idea of it. They opposed it and 
attacked it, and advancing Avith great heat arguments which 
had long ago been analyzed and refuted from every point of 
view, they demonstrated that a man ought invariably to 



44 ** THE KINGDOM OF COD 

defend (with violence) all the injured and oppressed, and 
that thus the doctrine of non-resistance to evil is an immoral 
doctrine. 

To all Russian critics the whole import of Christ's com- 
mand seemed reducible to the fact that it would hinder them 
from the active opposition to evil to which they are accus- 
tomed. So that the principle of non-resistance to evil by 
force has been attacked by two opposing camps: the con- 
servatives, because this principle would hinder their activity 
in resistance to evil as applied to the revolutionists, in per- 
secution and punishment of them ; the revolutionists, too, 
because this principle would hinder their resistance to evil 
as applied to the conservatives and the overthrowing of 
them. The conservatives were indignant at the doctrine of 
non-resistance to evil by force hindering the energetic 
destruction of the revolutionary elements, which may ruin 
the national prosperity; the revolutionists were indignant at 
the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force hindering the 
overthrow of the conservatives, who are ruining the national 
prosperity. It is worthy of remark in this connection that 
the revolutionists have attacked the principle of non- 
resistance to evil by force, in spite of the fact that it is the 
greatest terror and danger for every despotism. For ever 
since the beginning of the world, the use of violence of every 
kind, from the Inquisition to the Schliisselburg fortress, has 
rested and still rests on the opposite principle of the neces- 
sity of resisting evil by force. 

Besides this, the Russian critics hav^ pointed out the fact 
that the application of the command of non-resistance to 
practical life would turn mankind aside out of the path of 
civilization along which it is moving. The path of civiliza- 
tion on which mankind in Europe is moving is in their 
opinion the one along which all mankind ought always to 
move. 

So much for the general character of the Russian critics. 



IS WITHIN your 4S 

Foreign critics started from the same premises, but their 
discussions of my book were somewhat different from those 
of Russian critics, not only in being less bitter, and in 
showing more culture, but even in the subject-matter. 

In discussing my book and the Gospel teaching gener- 
ally, as it is expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, the for- 
eign critics maintained that such doctrine is not peculiarly 
Christian (Christian doctrine is either Catholicism or Prot- 
estantism according to their views) — the teaching of the 
Sermon on the Mount is only a string of very pretty imprac- 
ticable dreams du charmant docteur^ as Renan says, fit for 
the simple and half-savage inhabitants of Galilee who lived 
eighteen hundred years ago, and for the half-savage 
Russian peasants — Sutaev and Bondarev — and the Russian 
mystic Tolstoy, but not at all consistent with a high degree 
of European culture. 

The foreign freethinking critics have tried in a delicate 
manner, without being offensive to me, to give the impres- 
sion that my conviction that mankind could be guided by 
such a naive doctrine as that of the Sermon on the Mount 
proceeds from two causes: that such a conviction is partly 
due to my want of knowledge, my ignorance of history, my 
ignorance of all the vain attempts to apply the principles of 
the Sermon on the Mount to life, which have been made in 
history and have led to nothing; and partly it is due to my 
failing to appreciate the full value of the lofty civilization 
to which mankind has attained at present, with its Krupp 
cannons, smokeless pow^der, colonization of Africa, Irish 
Coercion Bill, parliamentary government, journalism, strikes, 
and the Eiffel Tower. 

So wrote de Vogue and Leroy Beaulieu and Matthew 
Arnold ; so wrote the American author Savage, and Inger- 
soll, the popular freethinking American preacher, and many 
others. 

**Christ's teaching is no use, because it is inconsistent 



46 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

with our industrial age," says Ingersoll naively, expressing 
in this utterance, with perfect directness and simplicity, the 
exact notion of Christ's teaching held by persons of refine- 
ment and culture of our times. The teaching is no use for 
our industrial age, precisely as though the existence of this 
industrial age were a sacred fact which ought not to and 
could not be changed. It is just as though drunkards 
when advised how they could be brought to habits of so- 
briety should answer that the advice is incompatible with 
their habit of taking alcohol. 

The arguments of all the freethinking critics, Russian 
and foreign alike, different as they may be in tone and man- 
ner of presentation, all amount essentially to the same 
strange misapprehension — namely, that Christ's teaching, 
one of the consequences of which is non-resistance to 
evil, is of no use to us because it requires a change of our 
life. 

Christ's teaching is useless because, if it were carried 
into practice, life could not go on as at present; we must 
add: if we have begun by living sinfully, as w^e do live and 
are accustomed to live. Not only is the question of non- 
resistance to evil not discussed ; the very mention of the 
fact that the duty of non-resistance enters into Christ's 
teaching is regarded as satisfactory proof of the impractica- 
bility of the whole teaching. 

Meanwhile one would have thought it was necessary to 
point out at least some kind of solution of the following 
question, since it is at the root of almost everything that 
interests us. 

The question amounts to this: In what way are we to 
decide men's disputes, when some men consider evil what 
others consider good, and vice versa ? And to reply that 
that is evil which I think evil, in spite of the fact that my 
opponent thinks it good, is not a solution of the difficulty. 
There can only be two solutions: either to find a real 



/s WITHIN you:' 47 

unquestionable criterion of what is evil or not to resist evil 
by force. 

The first course has been tried ever since the beginning 
of historical times, and, as we all know, it has not hitherto 
led to any successful results. 

The second solution — not forcibly to resist what we con- 
sider evil until we have found a universal criterion — that is 
the solution given by Christ. 

We may consider the answer given by Christ unsatis- 
factory; we may replace it by another and better, by find- 
ing a criterion by which evil could be defined for all men 
unanimously and simultaneously; w^e may simply, like sav- 
age nations, not recognize the existence of the question. 
But we cannot treat the question as the learned critics of 
Christianity do. They pretend either that no such question 
exists at all or that the question is solved .by granting to 
certain persons or assemblies of persons the right to define 
evil and to resist it by force. But we know all the while 
that granting such a right to certain persons does not decide 
the question (still less so when we are ourselves the certain 
persons), since there are always people who do not recog- 
nize this right in the authorized persons or assemblies. 

But this assumption, that what seems evil to us is really 
evil, shows a complete misunderstanding of the question, 
and lies at the root of the argument of freethinking critics 
about the Christian religion. In this way, then, the discus- 
sions of my book on the part of Churchmen and freethink- 
ing critics alike showed me that the majority of men simply 
do not understand either Christ's teaching or the questions 
which Christ's teaching solves. 



4^ '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

CHAPTER III. 

CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY BELIEVERS. 

Meaning of Christian Doctrine, Understood by a Minority, has Become 
Completely Incomprehensible for the Majority of Men — Reason of this 
to be Found in Misinterpretation of Christianity and Mistaken Con- 
viction of Believers and Unbelievers Alike that they Understand it — 
The Meaning of Christianity Obscured for Believers by the Church — 
The First Appearance of Christ's Teaching — Its Essence and Differ- 
ence from Heathen Religions — Christianity not Fully Comprehended 
at the Beginning, Became More and More Clear to those who Accepted 
it from its Correspondence with Truth — Simultaneously with this 
Arose the Claim to Possession of the Authentic Meaning of the Doc- 
trine Based on the Miraculous Nature of its Transmission — Assembly 
of Disciples as Described in the Acts — The Authoritative Claim 
to the Sole Possession of the True Meaning of Christ's Teaching 
Supported by Miraculous Evidence has Led by Logical Develop- 
ment to the Creeds of the Churches — A Church Could Not be Founded 
by Christ — Definitions of a Church According to the Catechisms — 
The Churches have Always been Several in Number and Hostile to 
One Another — What is Heresy — The Work of G. Arnold on Heresies — 
Heresies the Manifestations of Progress in the Churches — Churches 
Cause Dissension among Men, and are Always Hostile to Christianity 
— Account of the Work Done by the Russian Church — Matt, xxiii. 23 — 
The Sermon on the Mount or the Creed — The Orthodox Church 
Conceals from the People the True Meaning of Christianity — The 
Same Thing is Done by the Other Churches — All the External Con- 
ditions of Modern Life are such as to Destroy the Doctrine of the 
Church, and therefore the Churches use Every Effort to Support their 
Doctrines. 

Thus the information I received, after my book came 
out, went to show that the Christian doctrine, in its direct 
and simple sense, was understood, and had always been 
understood, by a minority of men, while the critics, eccle- 
siastical and freethinking alike, denied the possibility of 
taking Christ's teaching in its direct sense. All this con- 
vinced me that while on one hand the true understanding 



IS WITHIN Your 49 

of this doctrine had never been lost to a minority, but had 
been established more and more clearly, on the other hand 
the meaning of it had been more and more obscured for 
the majority. So that at last such a depth of obscurity has 
been reached that men do not take in their direct sense 
even the simplest precepts, expressed in the simplest words, 
in the Gospel. 

Christ's teaching is not generally understood in its true, 
simple, and direct sense even in these days, when the light 
of the Gospel has penetrated even to the darkest recesses 
of human consciousness ; when, in the words of Christ, that 
which was spoken in the ear is proclaimed from the house- 
tops ; and when the Gospel is influencing every side of 
human life — domestic, economic, civic, legislative, and 
international. This lack of true understanding of Christ's 
words at such a time would be inexplicable, if there were 
not causes to account for it. 

One of these causes is the fact that believers and 
unbelievers alike are firmly persuaded that they have 
understood Christ's teaching a long time, and that they 
understand it so fully, indubitably, and conclusively that it 
can have no other significance than the one they attribute 
to it. And the reason of this conviction is that the false 
interpretation and consequent misapprehension of the 
Gospel is an error of such long standing. Even the 
strongest current of water cannot add a drop to a cup 
which is already full. 

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most 
slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them 
already ; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to 
the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he 
knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid 
before him. 

The Christian doctrine is presented to the men of our 
world to-day as a doctrine which everyone has known so 



so '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

long and accepted so unhesitatingly in all its minutest 
details that it cannot be understood in any other way than 
it is understood now. 

Christianity is understood now by all who profess the 
doctrines of the Church as a supernatural miraculous 
revelation of everything which is repeated inVhe Creed. 
By unbelievers it is regarded as an illustration of man's 
craving for a belief in the supernatural, which mankind has 
now outgrown, as an historical phenomenon which has 
received full expression in Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, 
and Protestantism, and has no longer any living signifi- 
cance for us. The significance of the Gospel is hidden 
' from believers ^by the Church, from unbelievers by Science. 

I will speak first of the former. Eighteen hundred years 
ago there appeared in the midst of the heathen Roman 
world a strange new doctrine, unlike any of the old reli- 
gions, and attributed to a man, Christ. 

This new doctrine was in both form and content abso- 
lutely new to the Jewish world in which it originated, and 
still more to the Roman world in which it was preached 
and diffused. 

In the midst of the elaborate religious observances of 
Judaism, in which, in the words of Isaiah, law was laid 
upon law, and in the midst of the Roman legal system 
worked out to the highest point of perfection, a new doc- 
trine appeared, which denied not only every deity, and all 
fear and worship of them, but even all human institutions 
and all necessity for them. In place of all the rules of the 
)/old religions, this doctrine sets up only a type of inward per- 
[fection, truth, and love in the person of Christ, and — as a 
result of this inward perfection being attained by men — 
also the outward perfection foretold by the Prophets — the 
kingdom of God, when all men will cease to learn to make 
war, when all shall be taught of God and united in love, 
and the lion will lie down with the lamb. Instead of the 



IS WITHIN Your 51 

threats of punishment which all the old laws of religions 
and governments alike laid down for non-fulfillment of their 
rules, instead of promises of rewards for fulfillment of 
them, this doctrine called men to it only because it was the 
truth. John vii. 17 : ** If any man will do His will, he shall 
know of the doctrine whether it be of God." John viii. 
46 : " If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me ? But 
ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth. Ye 
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 
God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship 
him in spirit and in truth. Keep my sayings, and ye shall 
know of my sayings whether they be true/' No proofs of 
this doctrine were offered except its truth, the correspond- 
ence of the doctrine with the truth. The whole teaching 
consisted in the recognition of truth and following it, 
in a greater and greater attainment of truth, and a closer 
and closer following of it in the acts of life. There are 
no acts in this doctrine which could justify a man and make 
him saved. There is only the image of truth to guide'him, 
for inward perfection in the person of Christ, and for out- 
ward perfection in the establishment of the kingdom of 
God. The fulfillment of this teaching consists only in 
walking in the chosen way, in getting nearer to inward per- 
fection in the imitation of Christ, and outward perfection 
in the establishment of the kingdom of God. The greater/ 
or less blessedness of a man depends, according to this 
doctrine, not on the degree of perfection to which he has 
attained, but on the greater or less swiftness with which he 
is pursuing it. 

The progress toward perfection of the publican 
Zaccheus, of the woman that was a sinner, of the 
robber on the cross, is a greater state of blessedness, 
according to this doctrine, than the stationary righteous- 
ness of the Pharisee. The lost sheep is dearer than ninety- / * 
nine that were not lost. The prodigal son, the piece of ^ 



52 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

money that was lost and found again, are dearer, more 
precious to God than those which have not been lost. 

Every condition, according to this doctrine, is only 
a particular step in the attainment of inward and outward 
perfection, and therefore has no significance of itself. 
Blessedness consists in progress toward perfection ; to 
stand still in any condition whatever means the cessation 
of this blessedness. 

"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand 
doeth.*' '^ No man having put his hand to the plow and 
looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." " Rejoice 
not that the spirits are subject to you, but seek rather 
that your names be written in heaven." " Be ye perfect, 
even as your Father in heaven is perfect." " Seek ye first 
the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness." 

The fulfillment of this precept is only to be found in 
uninterrupted progress toward the attainment of ever 
higher truth, toward establishing more and more firmly 
an ever greater love within oneself, and establishing more 
and more widely the kingdom of God outside oneself. 

It is obvious that, appearing as it did in the midst of , 
the Jewish and heathen world, such teaching could not be / 
accepted by the majority of men, who were living a life ^^; 
absolutely different from what was required by it. It is 
obvious, too, that even for those by whom it was accepted, 
it was so absolutely opposed to all their old views that it 
could not be comprehensible in its full significance. 

It has been only by a succession of misunderstandings, 
errors, partial explanations, and the corrections and 
additions of generations that the meaning of the Christian 
doctrine has grown continually more and more clear to 
men. The Christian view of life has exerted an influence 
on the Jewish and heathen, and the heathen and Jewish 
view of life has, too, exerted an influence on the Christian. 
And Christianity, as the living force, has gained more and 



IS WITHIN Your S3 

more upon the extinct Judaism and heathenism, and has 
grown continually clearer and clearer, as it freed itself 
from the admixture of falsehood which had overlaid it. 
Men went further and further in the attainment of the 
meaning of Christianity, and realized it more and more 
in life. 

The longer mankind lived, the clearer and clearer 
became the meaning of Christianity, as must always be the 
case with every theory of life. 

Succeeding generations corrected the errors of their 
predecessors, and grew ever nearer and nearer to a com- 
prehension of the true meaning. It was thus from the 
very earliest times of Christianity. And so, too, from the 
earliest times of Christianity there were men who began to 
assert on their own authority that the meaning they at- 
tribute to the doctrine is the only true one, and as proof 
bring forward supernatural occurrences in support of the 
correctness of their interpretation. 

This was the principal cause at first of the misunder- 
standing of the doctrine, and afterward of the complete 
distortion of it. 

It was supposed that Christ's teaching was transmitted 
to men not like every other truth, but in a special miracu- 
lous way. Thus the truth of the teaching was not proved 
by its correspondence with the needs of the mind and the 
whole nature of man, but by the miraculous manner of its 
transmission, which was advanced as an irrefutable proof 
of the truth of the interpretation put on it. This hypothesis . 
originated from misunderstanding of the teaching, and its // 
result was to make it impossible to understand it rightly. 

And this happened first in the earliest times, when the 
doctrine was still not so fully understood and often inter- 
preted wrongly, as we see by the Gospels and the Acts. 
The less the doctrine was understood, the more obscure it 
appeared and the more necessary were external proofs of 



54 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

its truth. The proposition that we ought not to do unto 
others as we would not they should do unto us, did not 
need to be proved by miracles and needed no exercise of 
faith, because this proposition is in itself convincing and in 
harmony with man's mind and nature ; but the proposition 

/jthat Christ was God had to be proved by miracles com- 
/ /pletely beyond our comprehension. 

/ The more the understanding of Christ's teaching was 
obscured, the more the miraculous was introduced into it ; 
and the more the miraculous was introduced into it, the 
more the doctrine was strained from its meaning and the 
more obscure it became ; and the more it was strained 
from its meaning and the more obscure it became, the more 
strongly its infallibility had to be asserted, and the less com- 
prehensible the doctrine became. 

One can see by the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles 
how from the earliest times the non-comprehension of the 
doctrine called forth the need for proofs through the miracu- 
lous and incomprehensible. 

The first example in the book of Acts is the assembly 
which gathered together in Jerusalem to decide the ques- 
tion which had arisen, whether to baptize or not the uncir- 
cumcised and those who had eaten of food sacrificed to 
idols. 

The very fact of this question being raised showed that 
those who discussed it did not understand the teaching of 
Christ, who rejected all outward observances — ablutions, 
purifications, fasts, and sabbaths. It was plainly said, 
" Not that which goeth into a man's mouth, but that which 
cometh out of a man's mouth, defileth him," and therefore 
the question of baptizing the uncircumcised could only 
have arisen among men who, though they loved their 
Master and dimly felt the grandeur of his teaching, still 
did not understand the teaching itself very clearly. And 
this was the fact, 



IS WITHIN Your 55 

Just in proportion to the failure of the members of the 
assembly to understand the doctrine was their need of 
external confirmation of their incomplete interpretation of 
it. And then to settle this question, the very asking of 
which proved their misunderstanding of the doctrine, there 
was uttered in this assembly, as is described in the Acts, 
that strange phrase, which was for the first time found 
necessary to give external confirmation to certain asser- 
tions, and which has been productive of so much evil. 

That is, it was asserted that the correctness of what 
they had decided was guaranteed by the miraculous partici- 
pation of the Holy Ghost, that is, of God, in their decision. 
But the assertion that the Holy Ghost, that is, God, spoke 
through the Apostles, in its turn wanted proof. And thus 
it was necessary, to confirm this, that the Holy Ghost 
should descend at Pentecost in tongues of fire upon those 
who made this assertion. (In the account of it, the de- 
scent of the Holy Ghost precedes the assembly, but the 
book of Acts was written much later than both events.) 
But the descent of the Holy Ghost too had to be proved 
for those who had not seen the tongues of fire (though it is 
not easy to understand why a tongue of fire burning above 
a man's head should prove that what that man is going to 
say will be infallibly the truth). And so arose the neces- 
sity for still more miracles and changes, raisings of the 
dead to life, and strikings of the living dead, and all those 
marvels which have been a stumbling-block to men, of 
which the Acts is full, and which, far from ever convincing 
one of the truth of the Christian doctrine, can only repel 
men from it. The result of such a means of confirming 
the truth was that the more these confirmations of truth 
by tales of miracles were heaped up one after another, the 
more the doctrine was distorted from its original meaning, 
and the more incomprehensible it became. 

Thus it was from the earliest times, and so it went on, 



5^ *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

constantly increasing, till it reached in our day the logical 
climax of the dogmas of transubstantiation and the in- 
fallibility of the Pope, or of the bishops, or of Scripture, 
and of requiring a blind faith rendered incomprehensible 
and utterly meaningless, not in God, but in Christ, not in 
a doctrine, but in a person, as in Catholicism, or in persons, 
as in Greek Orthodoxy, or in a book, as in Protestantism. 
The more widely Christianity was diffused, and the greater 
the number of people unprepared for it who were brought 
under its sway, the less it was understood, the more abso- 
lutely was its infallibility insisted on, and the less possible 
it became to understand the true meaning of the doctrine. 
In the times of Constantine the whole interpretation of the 
doctrine had been already reduced to a resume — sup- 
ported by the temporal authority — of the disputes that had 
taken place in the Council — to a creed which reckoned off 
— I believe in so and so, and so and so, and so and so to 
the end — to one holy. Apostolic Church, which means the 
infallibility of those persons who call themselves the 
Church. So that it all amounts to a man no longer believ- 
ing in God nor Christ, as they are revealed to him, but 
believing in what the Church orders him to believe in. 

But the Church is holy ; the Church was founded by 
Christ. God could not leave men to interpret his teaching 
at random — therefore he founded the Church. All those 
statements are so utterly untrue and unfounded that one is 
ashamed to refute them. Nowhere nor in anything, except 
in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or 
Christ founded anything like what Churchmen understand 
by the Church. In the Gospels there is a warning against 
the Church, as it is an external authority, a warning most 
clear and obvious in the passage where it is said that 
Christ's followers should *^ call no man master.*' But 
nowhere is anything said of the foundation of what 
Churchmen call the Church, 



IS WITHIN Your 57 

The word church is used twice in the Gospels — once in 
the sense of an assembly of men to decide a dispute, the 
other time in connection with the obscure utterance about 
a stone — Peter, and the gates of hell. From these two 
passages in which the word church is used, in the significa- 
tion merely of an assembly, has been deduced all that we 
now understand by the Church. 

But Christ could not have founded the Church, that is, 
what we now understand by that word. For nothing like 
the idea of the Church as we know it now, with its sacra- 
ments, miracles, and above all its claim to infallibility, is to 
be found either in Christ*s words or in the ideas of the men 
of that time. 

The fact that men called what was formed afterward by 
the same word as Christ used for something totally different, 
does not give them the right to assert that Christ founded 
the one, true Church. 

Besides, if Christ had really founded such an institution 
as the Church for the foundation of all his teaching and the 
whole faith, he would certainly have described this institu- 
tion clearly and definitely, and would have given the only 
true Church, besides tales of miracles, which are used to 
support every kind of superstition, some tokens so unmis- 
takable that no doubt of its genuineness could ever have 
arisen. But nothing of the sort was done by him. And 
there have been and still are different institutions, each 
calling itself the true Church. 

The Catholic catechism says : ** L'Eglise est la societe 
des fideles etablie par notre Seigneur Jesus Christ, repandue 
sur toute la terre et soumise a I'authorite des pasteurs legi- 
times, principalement notre Saint Pere le Pape," * under- 
standing by the words ^* pasteurs legitimes " an association 

* '* The Church is the society of the faithful, established by our Lord 
Jesus Christ, spread over the whole earth, and subject to the authority 
of its lawful pastors, and chief of them our Holy Father the Pope," 



S8 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

of men having the Pope at its head, and consisting of certain 
individuals bound together by a certain organization. 

The Greek Orthodox catechism says : ^' The Church is 
a society founded upon earth by Jesus Christ, which is 
united into one whole, by one divine doctrine and by sacra- 
ments, under the rule and guidance of a priesthood appointed 
by God," meaning by the '* priesthood appointed by God " 
the Greek Orthodox priesthood, consisting of certain indi- 
viduals who happen to be in such or such positions. 

The Lutheran catechism says : " The Church is holy 
Christianity, or the collection of all believers under Christ, 
their head, to whom the Holy Ghost through the Gospels 
and sacraments promises, communicates, and administers 
heavenly salvation," meaning that the Catholic Church is 
lost in error, and that the true means of salvation is in 
Lutheranism. 

For Catholics the Church of God coincides with the 
Roman priesthood and the Pope. For the Greek Orthodox 
believer the Church of God coincides with the establishment 
and priesthood of Russia.* 

For Lutherans the Church of God coincides with a body 
of men who recognize the authority of the Bible and 
Luther's catechism. 

Ordinarily, when speaking of the rise of Christianity, 

* Homyakov's definition of the Church, which was received with some 
favor among Russians, does not improve matters, if we are to agree with 
Homyakov in considering the Greek Orthodox Church as the one true 
Church. Homyakov asserts that a church is a collection of men (all 
without distinction of clergy and laymen) united together by love, and 
that only to men united by love is the truth revealed (let us love each 
other, that in the unity of thought, etc.), and that such a church is the 
church which, in the first place, recognizes the Nicene Creed, and in 
the second place does not, after the division of the churches, recognize 
the popes and new dogmas. But with such a definition of the church, 
there is still more difficulty in reconciling, as Homyakov tries to do, the 
church united by love with the church that recognizes the Nicene Creed 



IS WITHIN^ Your , 59 

men belonging to one of the existing churches use the 
word church in the singular, as though there were and had 
been only one church. But this is absolutely incorrect. 
The Church, as an institution which asserted that it pos- 
sessed infallible truth, did not make its appearance singly ; 
there were at least two churches directly this claim was 
made. 

While believers were agreed among themselves and the 
body was one, it had no need to declare itself as a church. 
It was only when believers were split up into opposing 
parties, renouncing one another, that it seemed necessary 
to each party to confirm their own truth by ascribing to 
themselves infallibility. The conception of one church 
only arose when there were two sides divided and disputing, 
who each called the other side heresy, and recognized their 
own side only as the infallible church. 

If we knew that there was a church which decided in the 
year 51 to receive the uncircumcised, it is only so because 
there was another church — of the Judaists — who decided 
to keep the uncircumcised out. 

If there is a Catholic Church now which asserts its own 
infallibility, that is only because there are churches — 
Greco-Russian, Old Orthodox, and Lutheran — each assert- 
ing its own infallibility and denying that of all other 
churches. So that the one Church is only a fantastic 

and the doctrine of Photius. So that Homyakov's assertion that this 
church, united by love, and consequently holy, is the same church as 
the Greek Orthodox priesthood profess faith in, is even more arbitrary 
than the assertions of the Catholics or the Orthodox. If we admit the 
idea of a church in the sense Homyakov gives to it — that is, a body of 
men bound together by love and truth — then all that any man can predi- 
cate in regard to this body, if such an one exists, is its love and truth, 
but there can be no outer signs by which one could reckon oneself or 
another as a member of this holy body, nor by which one could put any- 
one outside it ; so that no institution having an external existence can 
correspond to this idea. 



6o *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Imagination which has not the least trace of reality about 
it. 

As a real historical fact there has existed, and still exist, 
several bodies of men, each asserting that it is the one 
Church, founded by Christ, and that all the others who call 
themselves churches are only sects and heresies. 

The catechisms of the churches of the most world-wide 
influence — the Catholic, the Old Orthodox, and the 
Lutheran — openly assert this. 

In the Catholic catechism it is said : *^ Quels sont ceux 
qui sont hors de Teglise ? Les infideles, les heretiques, les 
schismatiques.*' * The so-called Greek Orthodox are 
regarded as schismatics, the Lutherans as heretics ; so 
that according to the Catholic catechism the only people in 
the Church are Catholics. 

In the so-called Orthodox catechism it is said : By the 
one Christian Church is understood the Orthodox, which 
remains fully in accord with the Universal Church. As 
for the Roman Church and other sects (the Lutherans and 
the rest they do not even dignify by the name of church), 
they cannot be included in the one true Church, since they 
have themselves separated from it. 

According to this definition the Catholics and Lutherans 
are outside the Church, and there are only Orthodox in the 
Church. 

The Lutheran catechism says : *' Die wahre Kirche wird 
darein erkannt, dass in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein 
ohne Menschenzusatze gelehrt und die Sacramente treu 
nach Christi Einsetzung gewahret werden.'' f 

According to this definition all those who have added 

* ** Who are those who are outside the Church ? Infidels, heretics, and 
schismatics." 

f " The true Church will be known by the Word of God being studied 
clear and unmixed with man's additions and the sacraments being main- 
tained faithful to Christ's teaching." 



IS WITHIN you:' 6i 

anything to the teaching of Christ and the apostles, as the 
Catholic and Greek churches have done, are outside the 
Church. And in the Church there are only Protestants. 

The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost has been trans- 
mitted without a break in their priesthood. The Orthodox 
assert that the same Holy Ghost has been transmitted 
without a break in their priesthood. The Arians asserted 
that the Holy Ghost was transmitted in their priesthood 
(they asserted this with just as much right as the churches 
in authority now). The Protestants of every kind — 
Lutherans, Reformed Church, Presbyterians, Methodists, 
Swedenborgians, Mormons — assert that the Holy Ghost is 
only present in their communities. If the Catholics assert 
that the Holy Ghost, at the time of the division of the 
Church into Arian and Greek, left the Church that fell 
away and remained in the one true Church, with precisely 
the same right the Protestants of every denomination can 
assert that at the time of the separation of their Church 
from the Catholic the Holy Ghost left the Catholic and 
passed into the Church they professed. And this is just 
what they do. 

Every church traces its creed through an uninterrupted 
transmission from Christ and the Apostles. And truly 
every Christian creed that has been derived from Christ 
must have come down to the present generation through a 
certain transmission. But that does not prove that it alone 
of all that has been transmitted, excluding all the rest, can 
be the sole truth, admitting of no doubt. 

Every branch in a tree comes from the root in unbroken 
connection ; but the fact that each branch comes from the 
one root, does not prove at all that each branch was the 
only one. It is precisely the same with the Church. Every 
church presents exactly the same proofs of the succession, 
and even the same miracles, in support of its authenticity, 
as every other. So that there is but one strict and exact 



62 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

definition of what is a church (not of something fantastic 
which we would wish it to be, but of what it is and has 
been in reality) — a church is a body of men who claim for 
themselves that they are in complete and sole possession 
of the truth. And these bodies, having in course of time, 
aided by the support of the temporal authorities, developed 
into powerful institutions, have been the principal obstacles 
to the diffusion of a true comprehension of the teaching of 
Christ. 

It could not be otherwise. The chief peculiarity which 
distinguished Christ's teaching from previous religions 
consisted in the fact that those who accepted it strove 
ever more and more to comprehend and realize its teach- 
ing. But the Church doctrine asserted its own complete 
and final comprehension and realization of it. 

Strange though it may seem to us who have been 
brought up in the erroneous view of the Church as a 
Christian institution, and in contempt for heresy, yet the 
fact is that only in what was called heresy was there any 
true movement, that is, true Christianity, and that it only 
ceased to be so when those heresies stopped short in their 
movement and also petrified into the fixed forms of a 
church. 

And, indeed, what is a heresy ? Read all the theologi- 
cal works one after another. In all of them heresy is the 
subject which first presents itself for definition ; since 
every theological work deals with the true doctrine of 
Christ as distinguished from the erroneous doctrines 
which surround it, that is, heresies. Yet you will not find 
anywhere anything like a definition of heresy. 

The treatment of this subject by the learned historian of 
Christianity, E. de Pressense, in his '' Histoire du Dogma" 
(Paris, 1869), under the heading ** Ubi Christus, ibi 
Ecclesia," may serve as an illustration of the complete 
absence of anything like a definition of what is understood 



IS WITHIN you:' 63 

by the word heresy. Here is what he says in his intro- 
duction (p. 3) : ** Je sals que Ton nous conteste le droit de 
qualifier ainsi [that is, to call heresies] les tendances qui 
furent si vivement combattues par les premiers Peres. La 
designation meme d'heresie semble une atteinte portee a la 
liberte de conscience et de pensee. Nous ne pouvons 
partager ce scrupule, car il n'irait a rien moins qu'a enlever 
au Christianisme tout caractere distinctif." * 

And though he tells us that after Constantine's time the 
Church did actually abuse its power by designating those 
who dissented from it as heretics and persecuting them, 
yet he says, when speaking of early times: " L'eglise est 
une libre association ; il y a tout profit a se separer d'elle. 
La polemique contre I'erreur n'a d'autres ressources que la 
pensee et le sentiment. Un type doctrinal uniforme n'a 
pas encore ete elabore ; les divergences secondaires se pro- 
duisent en Orient et en Occident avec une entiere liberte ; 
la theologie n'est point liee a d'invariables formules. Si au 
sein de cette diversite apparait un fonds commun de croy- 
ances, n'est-on pas en droit d'y voir non pas un systeme 
formule et compose par les representants d'une autorite 
d'ecole, mais la foi elle-meme dans son instinct le plus siir 
et sa manifestation la plus spontanee ? Si cette meme una- 
nimite qui se revele dans les croyances essentielles, se 
retrouve pour repousser telles ou telles tendances, ne 
serons-nous pas en droit de conclure que ces tendances 
etaient en desacord flagrant avec les principes fondamentaux 
du christianisme ? Cette presomption ne se transformera- 
t-elle pas en certitude si nous reconnaissons dans la doctrine 
universellement repoussee par I'Eglise les traits caracteris- 

* ' • I know that our right to qualify thus the tendencies which were so 
actively opposed by the early Fathers is contested. The very use of the 
word heresy seems an attack upon liberty of conscience and thought. 
We cannot share this scruple ; for it would amount to nothing less than 
depriving Christianity of all distinctive character." 



64 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

tiques de Tune des religions du passe ? Pour dire que le 
gnosticisme ou I'ebionitisme sont les formes legitimes de la 
pensee chretienne il faut dire hardiment qu'il n'y a pas de 
pensee chretienne, ni de caractere specifique qui la fasse 
reconnaitre. Sous pretexte de I'elargir, on la dissout. 
Personne an temps de Platon n'eut ose couvrir de son nom 
une doctrine qui n'eut pas fait place a la theorie des idees ; 
et Ton e{it excite les justes moqueries de la Grece, en 
voulant faire d'Epicure ou de Zenon un disciple de I'Acad^- 
mie. Reconnaissons done que s'il existe une religion ou 
une doctrine qui s'appelle christianisme, elle peut avoir ses 
heresies.'* * 

The author's whole argument amounts to this : that 
every opinion which differs from the code of dogmas we 

* ' ' The Church is a free association ; there is much to be gained by 
separation from it. Conflict with error has no weapons other than 
thought and feeling. One uniform type of doctrine has not yet been 
elaborated ; divergencies in secondary matters arise freely in East and 
West ; theology is not wedded to invariable formulas. If in the midst 
of this diversity a mass of beliefs common to all is apparent, is one not 
justified in seeing in it, not a formulated system, framed by the repre- 
sentatives of pedantic authority, but faith itself in its surest instinct and 
its most spontaneous manifestation ? If the same unanimity which is 
revealed in essential points of belief is found also in rejecting certain 
tendencies, are we not justified in concluding that these tendencies were 
in flagrant opposition to the fundamental principles of Christianity ? And 
will not this presumption be transformed into certainty if we recognize in 
the doctrine universally rejected by the Church the characteristic features 
of one of the religions of the past ? To say that gnosticism or ebionitism 
are legitimate forms of Christian thought, one must boldly deny the 
existence of Christian thought at all, or any specific character by which 
it could be recognized. While ostensibly widening its realm, one un- 
dermines it. No one in the time of Plato would have ventured to give his 
name to a doctrine in which the theory of ideas had no place, and one 
would deservedly have excited the ridicule of Greece by trying to pass 
off Epicurus or Zeno as a disciple of the Academy. Let us recognize, 
then, that if a religion or a doctrine exists which is called Christianity, 
it may have its heresies." 



IS WITHIN Your (i^ 

believe in at a given time, is heresy. But of course at any 
given time and place men always believe in something or 
other ; and this belief in something, indefinite at any place, 
at some time, cannot be a criterion of truth. 

It all amounts to this : since ubi Christus ibi Ecclesia, 
then Christus is where we are. 

Every so-called heresy, regarding, as it does, its own 
creed as the truth, can just as easily find in Church history 
a series of illustrations of its own creed, can use all Pres- 
sense's arguments on its own behalf, and can call its own 
creed the one truly Christian creed. And that is just what 
all heresies do and have always done. 

The only definition of heresy (the word aipeai^^ means 
a part) is this : the name given by a body of men to any 
opinion which rejects a part of the Creed professed by that 
body. The more frequent meaning, more often ascribed 
to the word heresy, is — that of an opinion which rejects the 
Church doctrine founded and supported by the temporal 
authorities. 

There is a remarkable and voluminous work, very little 
known, ^^ Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie,** 
1729, by Gottfried Arnold, which deals with precisely this 
subject, and points out all the unlawfulness, the arbitrari- 
ness, the senselessness, and the cruelty of using the word 
heretic in the sense of reprobate. This book is an attempt 
to write the history of Christianity in the form of a history 
of heresy. 

In the introduction the author propounds a series of 
questions : (i) Of those who make heretics ; (2) Of those 
whom they made heretics ; (3) Of heretical subjects them- 
selves ; (4) Of the method of making heretics ; and (5) Of 
the object and result of making heretics. 

On each of these points he propounds ten more ques- 
tions, the answers to which he gives later on from the 
works of well-known theologians. But he leaves the reader 



66 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

to draw for himself the principal conclusion from the 
expositions in the whole book. As examples of these 
questions, in which the answers are to some extent included 
also, I will quote the following. Under the 4th head, of 
the manner in which heretics are made, he says, in one of 
the questions (in the 7th) : 

" Does not all history show that the greatest makers of 
heretics and masters of that craft were just these wise men, 
from whom the Father hid his secrets, that is, the hypo- 
crites, the Pharisees, and lawyers, men utterly godless and 
perverted (Question 20-21)? And in the corrupt times of 
Christianity were not these very men cast out, denounced 
by the hypocrites and envious, who were endowed by God 
with great gifts and who would in the days of pure Christi- 
anity have been held in high honor ? And, on the other 
hand, would not the men who, in the decline of Christianity 
raised themselves above all, and regarded themselves as the 
teachers of the purest Christianity, would not these very 
men, in the times of the apostles and disciples of Christ, 
have been regarded as the most shameless heretics and 
anti-Christians ? " 

He expounds, among other things in these questions, the 
theory that any verbal expression of faith, such as was 
demanded by the Church, and the departure from which 
was reckoned as heresy, could never fully cover the exact 
religious ideas of a believer, and that therefore the demand 
for an expression of faith in certain words was ever pro- 
ductive of heresy, and he says, in Question 21 : 

'^ And if heavenly things and thoughts present themselves 
to a man's mind as so great and so profound that he does 
not find corresponding words to express them, ought one to 
call him a heretic, because he cannot express his idea with 
perfect exactness ? '* And in Question 2)Z ' 

"And is not the fact that there was no heresy in the 
earliest days due to the fact that the Christians did not 



IS WITHIN YOUr 67 

judge one another by verbal expressions, but by deed and 
by heart, since they had perfect liberty to express their 
ideas without the dread of being called heretics ; was it 
not the easiest and most ordinary ecclesiastical proceeding, 
if the clergy wanted to get rid of or to ruin anyone, for 
them to cast suspicion on the person's belief, and to throw 
a cloak of heresy upon him, and by this means to procure 
his condemnation and removal ? 

*^ True though it may be that there were sins and errors 
among the so-called heretics, it is no less true and evident," 
he says farther on, " from the innumerable examples quoted 
here (/. ^., in the history of the Church and of heresy), that 
there was not a single sincere and conscientious man of any 
importance whom the Churchmen would not from envy or 
other causes have ruined." 

Thus, almost two hundred years ago, the real meaning 
of heresy was understood. And notwithstanding that, the 
same conception of it has gone on existing up to now. 
And it cannot fail to exist so long as the conception of a 
church exists. Heresy is the obverse side of the Church. 
Wherever there is a church, there must be the conception 
of heresy. A church is a body of men who assert that 
they are in possession of infallible truth. Heresy is the 
opinion of the men who do not admit the infallibility of 
the Church's truth. 

Heresy makes its appearance in the Church. It is the 
effort to break through the petrified authority of the 
Church. All effort after a living comprehension of the 
doctrine has been made by heretics. Tertullian, Origen, 
Augustine, Luther, Huss, Savonarola, Helchitsky, and the 
rest were heretics. It could not be otherwise. 

The follower of Christ, whose service means an ever- 
growing understanding of his teaching, and an ever-closer 
fulfillment of it, in progress toward perfection, cannot, just 
because he is a follower of Christ, claim for himself or any 



OS '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Other that he understands Christ's teaching fully and fulfills 
it. Still less can he claim this for any body of men. 

To whatever degree of understanding and perfection the 
follower of Christ may have attained, he always feels the 
insufficiency of his understanding and fulfillment of it, 
and is always striving toward a fuller understanding and 
fulfillment. And therefore, to assert of one's self or of any 
body of men, that one is or they are in possession of per- 
fect understanding and fulfillment of Christ's word, is to 
renounce the very spirit of Christ's teaching. 

Strange as it may seem, the churches as churches have 
always been, and cannot but be, institutions not only alien 
in spirit to Christ's teaching, but even directly antagonistic 
to it. With good reason Voltaire calls the Church rinfd7ne; 
with good reason have all or almost all so-called sects of 
Christians recognized the Church as the scarlet woman 
foretold in the Apocalypse ; with good reason is the his- 
tory of the Church the history of the greatest cruelties and 
horrors. 

The churches as churches are not, as many people sup- 
pose, institutions which have Christian principles for their 
basis, even though they may have strayed a little away 
from the straight path. The churches as churches, as 
bodies which assert their own infallibility, are institutions 
opposed to Christianity. There is not only nothing in 
common between the churches as such and Christianity, 
except the name, but they represent two principles funda- 
mentally opposed and antagonistic to one another. One 
represents pride, violence, self-assertion, stagnation, and 
death ; the other, meekness, penitence, humility, progress, 
and life. 

We cannot serve these two masters ; we have to choose 
between them. 

The servants of the churches of all denominations, 
especially of later times, try to show themselves champions 



IS WITHIN Your 69 

of progress in Christianity. They make concessions, wish 
to correct the abuses that have slipped into the Church, 
and maintain that one cannot, on account of these abuses, 
deny the principle itself of a Christian church, which alone 
can bind all men together in unity and be a mediator 
between men and God. But this is all a mistake. Not 
only have the churches never bound men together in unity ; 
they have always been one of the principal causes of 
division between men, of their hatred of one another, of 
wars, battles, inquisitions, massacres of St. Bartholomew, 
and so on. And the churches have never served as media- 
tors between men and God. Such mediation is not wanted, 
and was directly forbidden by Christ, who has revealed his 
teaching directly and immediately to each man. But the 
churches set up dead forms in the place of God, and far 
from revealing God, they obscure him from men*s sight. 
The churches, which originated from misunderstanding of 
Christ's teaching and have maintained this misunderstand- 
ing by their immovability, cannot but persecute and refuse 
to recognize all true understanding of Christ's words. 
They try to conceal this, but in vain ; for every step for- 
ward along the path pointed out for us by Christ is a step 
toward their destruction. 

To hear and to read the sermons and articles in w^hich 
Church writers of later times of all denominations speak of 
Christian truths and virtues ; to hear or read these skillful 
arguments that have been elaborated during centuries, and 
exhortations and professions, which sometimes seem like 
sincere professions, one is ready to doubt whether the 
churches can be antagonistic to Christianity. *^ It cannot 
be," one says, " that these people who can point to such 
men as Chrysostom, Fenelon, Butler, and others professing 
the Christian faith, were antagonistic to Christianity." 
One is tempted to say, **The churches may have strayed 
away from Christianity, they may be in error, but they can- 



70 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

not be hostile to it/' But we must look to the fruit to 
judge the tree, as Christ taught us. And if we see that 
their fruits were evil, that the results of their activity were 
antagonistic to Christianity, we cannot but admit that how- 
ever good the men were — the work of the Church in which 
these men took part was not Christian. The goodness and 
worth of these men who served the churches was the good- 
ness and worth of the men, and not of the institution they 
served. All the good men, such as Francis of Assisi, and 
Francis of Sales, our Tihon Zadonsky, Thomas a Kempis, 
and others, were good men in spite of their serving an 
institution hostile to Christianity, and they would have 
been still better if they had not been under the influence of 
the error which they were serving. 

But why should we speak of the past and judge from the 
past, which may have been misrepresented and misunder- 
stood by us ? The churches, with their principles and their 
practice, are not a thing of the past. The churches are 
before us to-day, and we can judge of them to some pur- 
pose by their practical activity, their influence on men. 

What is the practical work of the churches to-day? 
What is their influence upon men ? What is done by the 
churches among us, among the Catholics and the Protes- 
tants of all denominations — what is their practical work ? 
and what are the results of their practical work ? 

The practice of our Russian so-called Orthodox Church 
is plain to all. It is an enormous fact which there is no 
possibility of hiding and about which there can be no dis- 
puting. 

What constitutes the practical work of this Russian 
Church, this immense, intensely active institution, which 
consists of a regiment of half a million men and costs the 
people tens of millions of rubles ? 

The practical business of the Church consists in instill- 
ing by every conceivable means into the mass of one hun- 



IS WITHIN Your 71 

dred millions of the Russian people those extinct relics of 
beliefs for which there is nowadays no kind of justification, 
*^ in which scarcely anyone now believes, and often not 
even those whose duty it is to diffuse these false beliefs." 
To instill into the people the formulas of Byzantine 
theology, of the Trinity, of the Mother of God, of Sacra- 
ments, of Grace, and so on, extinct conceptions, foreign to 
us, and having no kind of meaning for men of our times, 
forms only one part of the work of the Russian Church. 
Another part of its practice consists in the maintenance of 
idol-worship in the most literal meaning of the word ; in 
the veneration of holy relics, and of ikons, the offering 
of sacrifices to them, and the expectation of their answers 
to prayer. I am not going to speak of what is preached 
and what is written by clergy of scientific or liberal tenden- 
cies in the theological journals. I am going to speak of 
what is actually done by the clergy through the wide 
expanse of the Russian land among a people of one hun- 
dred millions. What do they, diligently, assiduously, 
everywhere alike, without intermission, teach the people ? 
What do they demand from the people in virtue of their 
(so-called) Christian faith ? 

I will begin from the beginning with the birth of a child. 
At the birth of a child they teach them that they must 
recite a prayer over the child and mother to purify them, 
as though without this prayer the mother of a newborn 
child were unclean. To do this the priest holds the child 
in his arms before the images of the saints (called by the 
people plainly gods) and reads words of exorcizing power, 
and this purifies the mother. Then it is suggested to the 
parents, and even exacted of them, under fear of punish- 
ment for non-fulfillment, that the child must be baptized ; 
that is, be dipped by the priest three times into the water, 
while certain words, understood by no one, are read aloud, 
and certain actions, still less understood, are performed ; 



72 '' THE KINGDOM OF COD 

various parts of the body are rubbed with oil, and the hair 
is cut, while the sponsors blow and spit at an imaginary 
devil. All this is necessary to purify the child and to 
make him a Christian. Then it is instilled into the parents 
that they ought to administer the sacrament to the child, 
that is, give him, in the guise of bread and wine, a portion 
of Christ's body to eat, as a result of which the child 
receives the grace of God within it, and so on. Then it 
is suggested that the child as it grows up must be taught to 
pray. To pray means to place himself directly before the 
wooden boards on which are painted the faces of Christ, the 
Mother of God, and the saints, to bow his head and his 
whole body, and to touch his forehead, his shoulders and 
his stomach with his right hand, holding his fingers in a 
certain position, and to utter some words of Slavonic, the 
most usual of which as taught to all children are : Mother 
of God, virgin, rejoice thee, etc., etc. 

Then it is instilled into the child as it is brought up that 
at the sight of any church or ikon he must repeat the same 
action — /. e.^ cross himself. Then it is instilled into him 
that on holidays (holidays are the days on which Christ was 
born, though no one knows when that was, on which he 
was circumcised, on which the Mother of God died, on 
which the cross was carried in procession, on w^hich ikons 
have been set up, on which a lunatic saw a vision, and so 
on) — on holidays he must dress himself in his best clothes 
and go to church, and must buy candles and place them 
there before the images of the saints. Then he must give 
offerings and prayers for the dead, and little loaves to be 
cut up into three-cornered pieces, and must pray many 
times for the health and prosperity of the Tzar and the 
bishops, and for himself and his own affairs, and then kiss 
the cross and the hand of the priest. 

Besides these observances, it is instilled into him that at 
least once a year he must confess. To confess means to 



IS WITHIN you:* 73 

go to the church and to tell the priest his sins, on the 
theory that this informing a stranger of his sins completely 
purifies him from them. And after that he must eat with 
a little spoon a morsel of bread with wine, which will 
purify him still more. Next it is instilled into him that if 
a man and woman want their physical union to be sancti- 
fied they must go to church, put on metal crowns, drink 
certain potions, walk three times round a table to the 
sound of singing, and that then the physical union of a 
man and woman becomes sacred and altogether different 
from all other such unions. 

Further it is instilled into him in his life that he must 
observe the following rules : not to eat butter or milk on 
certain days, and on certain other days to sing Te Deums 
and requiems for the dead, on holidays to entertain the 
priest and give him money, and several times in the year to 
bring the ikons from the church, and to carry them slung 
on his shoulders through the fields and houses. It is in- 
stilled into him that on his death-bed a man must not fail 
to eat bread and wine with a spoon, and that it will be still 
better if he has time to be rubbed with sacred oil. This 
will guarantee his welfare in the future life. After his death 
it is instilled into his relatives that it is a good thing for 
the salvation of the dead man to place a printed paper of 
prayers in his hands ; it is a good thing further to read 
aloud a certain book over the dead body, and to pronounce 
the dead man's name in church at a certain time. All this 
is regarded as faith obligatory on everyone. 

But if anyone wants to take particular care of his soul, 
then according to this faith he is instructed that the great- 
est security of the salvation of the soul in the world is at- 
tained by offering money to the churches and monasteries, 
and engaging the holy men by this means to pray for him. 
Entering monasteries too, and kissing relics and miraculous 
ikons, are further means of salvation for the soul 



74 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

According to this faith ikons and relics communicate a 
special sanctity, power, and grace, and even proximity to 
these objects, touching them, kissing them, putting candles 
before them, crawling under them while they are being 
carried along, are all efficacious for salvation, as well as 
Te Deums repeated before these holy things. 

So this, and nothing else, is the faith called Orthodox, 
that is the actual faith which, under the guise of Chris- 
tianity, has been with all the forces of the Church, and is 
now with especial zeal, instilled into the people. 

And let no one say that the Orthodox teachers place the 
essential part of their teaching in something else, and that 
all these are only ancient forms,»which it is not thought 
necessary to do away with. That is false. This, and noth- 
ing but this, is the faith taught through the whole of Russia 
by the whole of the Russian clergy, and of late years with 
especial zeal. There is nothing else taught. Something- 
different may be talked of and written of in the capitals ; 
but among the hundred millions of the people this is what 
is done, this is what is taught, and nothing more. Church- 
men may talk of something else, but this is what they teach 
by every means in their power. 

All this, and the worship of relics and of ikons, has been 
introduced into works of theology and into the catechisms. 
Thus they teach it to the people in theory and in practice, 
using every resource of authority, solemnity, pomp, and 
violence to impress them. They compel the people, by 
overawing them, to believe in this, and jealously guard this 
faith from any attempt to free the people from these bar- 
barous superstitions. 

As I said when I published my book, Christ's teaching 
and his very words about non-resistance to evil were for 
many years a subject for ridicule and low jesting in my 
eyes, and Churchmen, far from opposing it, even encour- 
aged this scoffing at sacred things. But try the experiment 



/S WITHIN you:' 75 

of saying a disrespectful word about a hideous idol which is 
carried sacrilegiously about Moscow by drunken men under 
the name of the ikon of the Iversky virgin, and you will 
raise a groan of indignation from these same Churchmen. 
All that they preach is an external observance of the rites 
of idolatry. And let it not be said that the one does not 
hinder the other, that " These ought ye to have done, and 
not to leave the other undone." "All, therefore, whatso- 
ever they bid you observe, that observe and do ; but do 
not ye after their works : for they say, and do not '' (Matt, 
xxiii. 23, 3). 

This was spoken of the Pharisees, who fulfilled all the 
external observances prescribed by the law, and therefore 
the words *^ whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe 
and do," refer to works of mercy and goodness, and the 
words " do not ye after their works, for they say and do 
not," refer to their observance of ceremonies and their 
neglect of good works, and have exactly the opposite mean- 
ing to that which the Churchmen try to give to the passage, 
interpreting it as an injunction to observe ceremonies. Ex- 
ternal observances and the service of truth and goodness 
are for the most part difficult to combine ; the one ex- 
cludes the other. So it was with the Pharisees, so it is 
now with Church Christians. 

If a man can be saved by the redemption, by sacraments, 
and by prayer, then he does not need good works. 

The Sermon on the Mount, or the Creed. One cannot 
believe in both. And Churchmen have chosen the latter. 
The Creed is taught and is read as a prayer in the churches, 
but the Sermon on the Mount is excluded even from the 
Gospel passages read in the churches, so that the congre- 
gation never hears it in church, except on those days when 
the whole of the Gospel is read. Indeed, it could not be 
otherwise. People who believe in a wicked and senseless 
God — who has cursed the human race and devoted his own 



76 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Son to sacrifice, and a part of mankind to eternal torment 
— cannot believe in the God of love. The man who be- 
lieves in a God, in a Christ coming again in glory to judge 
and to punish the quick and the dead, cannot believe in 
the Christ who bade us turn the left cheek, judge not, for- 
give those that wrong us, and love our enemies. The man 
who believes in the inspiration of the Old Testament and 
the sacred character of David, who commanded on his 
deathbed the murder of an old man who had cursed him, 
and whom he could not kill himself because he was bound 
by an oath to him, and the similar atrocities of which the 
Old Testament is full, cannot believe in the holy love of 
Christ. The man who believes in the Church's doctrine of 
the compatibility of warfare and capital punishment with 
Christianity cannot believe in the brotherhood of all men. 

And what is most important of all — the man who believes 
in salvation through faith in the redemption or the sacra- 
ments, cannot devote all his powers to realizing Christ's 
moral teaching in his life. 

The man who has been instructed by the Church in the 
profane doctrine that a man cannot be saved by his own 
powers, but that there is another means of salvation, will 
infallibly rely upon this means and not on his own powers, 
which, they assure him, it is sinful to trust in. 

The teaching of every Church, with its redemption and 
sacraments, excludes the teaching of Christ ; most of all 
the teaching of the Orthodox Church with its idolatrous 
observances. 

** But the people have always believed of their own 
accord as they believe now," will be said in answer to this. 
** The whole history of the Russian people proves it. One 
cannot deprive the people of their traditions.'' This state- 
ment, too, is misleading. The people did certainly at one 
time believe in something like what the Church believes in 
now, though it was far from being the same thing. In 



IS WITHIN YOUr 77 

spite of their superstitious regard for ikons, house- 
spirits, relics, and festivals with wreaths of birch leaves, 
there has still always been in the people a profound moral 
and living understanding of Christianity, which there has 
never been in the Church as a whole, and which is only 
met with in its best representatives. But the people, not- 
withstanding all the prejudices instilled into them by the 
government and the Church, have in their best representa- 
tives long outgrown that crude stage of understanding, a 
fact which is proved by the springing up everywhere of the 
rationalist sects with which Russia is swarming to-day, and 
on which Churchmen are now carrying on an ineffectual 
warfare. The people are advancing to a consciousness of 
the moral, living side of Christianity. And then the Church 
comes forward, not borrowing from the people, but zealously 
instilling into them the petrified formalities of an extinct 
paganism, and striving to thrust them back again into the 
darkness from which they are emerging with such effort. 

** We teach the people nothing new, nothing but what they 
believe, only in a more perfect form,'* say the Churchmen. 
This is just what the man did who tied up the full-grown 
chicken and thrust it back into the shell it had come 
out of. 

I have often been irritated, though it would be comic if 
the consequences were not so awful, by observing how men 
shut one another in a delusion and cannot get out of this 
magic circle. 

The first question, the first doubt of a Russian who is 
beginning to think, is a question about the ikons, and still 
more the miraculous relics: Is it true that they are genuine, 
and that miracles are worked through them ? Hundreds 
of thousands of men put this question to themselves, and 
their principal difficulty in answering it is the fact that 
bishops, metropolitans, and all men in positions of authority 
kiss the relics and wonder-working ikons. Ask the bishops 



78 ** THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

and men in positions of authority why they do so, and they 
will say they do it for the sake of the people, while the 
people kiss them because the bishops and men in authority 
do so. 

In spite of all the external varnish of modernity, learning, 
and spirituality which the members of the Church begin 
nowadays to assume in their works, their articles, their 
theological journals, and their sermons, the practical work 
of the Russian Church consists of nothing more than keep- 
ing the people in their present condition of coarse and 
savage idolatry, and worse still, strengthening and diffusing 
superstition and religious ignorance, and suppressing that 
living understanding of Christianity which exists in the 
people side by side with idolatry. 

I remember once being present in the monks* bookshop 
of the Optchy Hermitage while an old peasant was choos- 
ing books for his grandson, who could read. A monk 
pressed on him accounts of relics, holidays, miraculous 
ikons, a psalter, etc. I asked the old man, ^* Has he the 
Gospel? '* '' No.'* '' Give him the Gospel in Russian," I 
said to the monk. ** That will not do for him," answered 
the monk. There you have an epitome of the work of our 
Church. 

But this is only in barbarous Russia, the European and 
American reader will observe. And such an observation 
is just, but only so far as it refers to the government, which 
aids the Church in its task of stultification and corruption 
in Russia. 

It is true that there is nowhere in Europe a government 
so despotic and so closely allied with the ruling Church. 
And therefore the share of the temporal power in the cor- 
ruption of the people is greatest in Russia. But it is untrue 
that the Russian Church in its influence on the people is in 
any respect different from any other church. 

The churches are everywhere the same, and if the 



IS WITHIN- Your 79 

Catholic, the Anglican, or the Lutheran Church has not at 
hand a government as compliant as the Russian, it is not 
due to any indisposition to profit by such a government. 

The Church as a church, whatever it may be — Catholic, 
Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian — every church, in so far 
as it is a church, cannot but strive for the same object as 
the Russian Church. That object is to conceal the real 
meaning of Christ's teaching and to replace it by their 
own, which lays no obligation on them, excludes the pos- 
sibility of understanding the true teaching of Christ, and 
what is the chief consideration, justifies the existence of 
priests supported at the people's expense. 

What else has Catholicism done, what else is it doing in 
its prohibition of reading the Gospel, and in its demand for 
unreasoning submission to Church authorities and to an 
infallible Pope ? Is the religion of Catholicism any other 
than that of the Russian Church ? There is the same 
external ritual, the same relics, miracles, and wonder-work- 
ing images of Notre Dame, and the same processions ; 
the same loftily vague discussions of Christianity in books 
and sermons, and when it comes to practice, the same sup- 
porting of the present idolatry. And is not the same thing 
done in Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and every denomination 
of Protestantism which has been formed into a church? 
There is the same duty laid on their congregations to 
believe in the dogmas expressed in the fourth century, 
which have lost all meaning for men of our times, and the 
same duty of idolatrous worship, if not of relics and ikons, 
then of the Sabbath Day and the letter of the Bible. There 
is always the same activity directed to concealing the real 
duties of Christianity, and to putting in their place an 
external respectability and cant, as it is so well described 
by the English, who are peculiarly oppressed by it. In 
Protestantism this tendency is specially remarkable because 
it has not the excuse of antiquity. And does not exactly 



8o *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

the same thing show itself even in contemporary reviv- 
alism — the revived Calvinism and Evangelicalism, to which 
the Salvation Army owes its origin ? 

Uniform is the attitude of all the churches to the teach- 
ing of Christ, whose name they assume for their own 
advantage. 

The inconsistency of all church forms of religion with 
the teaching of Christ is, of course, the reason why special 
efforts are necessary to conceal this inconsistency from 
people. Truly, we need only imagine ourselves in the 
position of any grown-up man, not necessarily educated, 
even the simplest man of the present day, who has picked 
up the ideas that are everywhere in the air nowadays of 
geology, physics, chemistry, cosmography, or history, when 
he, for the first time, consciously compares them with the 
articles of belief instilled into him in childhood, and main- 
tained by the churches — that God created the world in six 
days, and light before the sun ; that Noah shut up all the 
animals in his ark, and so on ; that Jesus is also God the 
Son, who created all before time was ; that this God came 
down upon earth to atone for Adam's sin ; that he rose 
again, ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of 
the Father, and will come in the clouds to judge the world, 
and so on. All these propositions, elaborated by men of 
the fourth century, had a certain meaning for men of that 
time, but for men of to-day they have no meaning what- 
ever. Men of the present day can repeat these words with 
their lips, but believe them they cannot. For such sen- 
tences as that God lives in heaven, that the heavens opened 
and a voice from somewhere said something, that Christ 
rose again, and ascended somewhere in heaven, and again 
will come from somewhere on the clouds, and so on, have 
no meaning for us. 

A man who regarded the heavens as a solid, finite vault 
could believe or disbelieve that God created the heavens, 



IS WITHIN you:' 8 1 

that tlie heavens opened, that Christ ascended into heaven, 
but for us all these phrases have no sense whatever. Men 
of the present can only believe, as indeed they do, that they 
ought to believe in this ; but believe it they cannot, because 
it has no meaning for them. 

Even if all these phrases ought to be interpreted in a 
figurative sense and are allegories, we know that in the 
first place all Churchmen are not agreed about it, but, on 
the contrary, the majority stick to understanding the Holy 
Scripture in its literal sense ; and secondly, that these 
allegorical interpretations are very varied and are not sup- 
ported by any evidence. 

But even if a man wants to force himself to believe in 
the doctrines of the Church just as they are taught to him, 
the universal diffusion of education and of the Gospel and 
of communication between people of different forms of 
religion presents a still more insurmountable obstacle to 
his doing so. 

A man of the present day need only buy a Gospel for 
three copecks and read through the plain words, admitting 
of no misinterpretation, that Christ said to the Samaritan 
woman ** that the Father seeketh not worshipers at 
Jerusalem, nor in this mountain nor in that, but wor- 
shipers in spirit and in truth," or the saying that **the 
Christian must not pray like the heathen, nor for show, but 
secretly, that is, in his closet,*' or that Christ's follower 
must call no man master or father — he need only read 
these words to be thoroughly convinced that the Church 
pastors, who call themselves teachers in opposition to 
Christ's precept, and dispute among themselves, constitute 
no kind of authority, and that what the Churchmen teach 
us is not Christianity. Less even than that is necessary. 
Even if a man nowadays did continue to believe in miracles 
and did not read the Gospel, mere association with people 
of different forms of religion and faith, which happens so 



§2 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

easily in these days, compels him to doubt of the truth of 
his own faith. It was all very well when a man did not see 
men of any other form of religion than his own ; he believed 
that his form of religion was the one true one. But a 
thinking man has only to come into contact — as constantly 
happens in these days — with people, equally good and bad, 
of different denominations, who condemn each other's 
beliefs, to doubt of the truth of the belief he professes him- 
self. In these days only a man who is absolutely ignorant 
or absolutely indifferent to the vital questions with which 
religion deals, can remain in the faith of the Church. 

What deceptions and what strenuous efforts the churches 
must employ to continue, in spite of all these tendencies 
subversive of the faith, to build churches, to perform masses, 
to preach, to teach, to convert, and, most of all, to receive 
for it all immense emoluments, as do all these priests, 
pastors, incumbents, superintendents, abbots, archdeacons, 
bishops, and archbishops. They need special supernatural 
efforts. And the churches do, with ever-increasing inten- 
sity and zeal, make such efforts. With us in Russia, 
besides other means, they employ simple brute force, as 
there the temporal power is willing to obey the Church. 
Men who refuse an external assent to the faith, and say so 
openly, are either directly punished or deprived of their 
rights ; men who strictly keep the external forms of 
religion are rewarded and given privileges. 

That is how the Orthodox clergy proceed ; but indeed 
all churches without exception avail themselves of every 
means for the purpose — one of the most important of which 
is what is now called hypnotism. 

Every art, from architecture to poetry, is brought into 
requisition to work its effect on men's souls and to reduce 
them to a state of stupefaction, and this effect is constantly 
produced. This use of hypnotizing influence on men to 
bring them to a state of stupefaction is especially apparent 



IS WITHIN Your 83 

in the proceedings of the Salvation Army, who employ new 
practices to which we are unaccustomed : trumpets, drums, 
songs, flags, costumes, marching, dancing, tears, and 
dramatic performances. 

But this only displeases us because these are new 
practices. Were not the old practices in churches essen- 
tially the same, with their special lighting, gold, splendor, 
candles, choirs, organ, bells, vestments, intoning, etc.? 

But however powerful this hypnotic influence may be, it 
is not the chief nor the most pernicious activity of the 
Church. The chief and most pernicious work of the 
Church is that which is directed to the deception of 
children — these very children of whom Christ said : *^ Woe 
to him that offendeth one of these little ones." From the 
very first awakening of the consciousness of the child they 
begin to deceive him, to instill into him with the utmost 
solemnity what they do not themselves believe in, and they 
continue to instill it into him till the deception has by 
habit grown into the child's nature. They studiously de- 
ceive the child on the most important subject in life, and 
when the deception has so grown into his life that it would 
be difficult to uproot it, then they reveal to him the whole 
world of science and reality, which cannot by any means be 
reconciled with the beliefs that have been instilled into 
him, leaving it to him to find his way as best he can out of 
these contradictions. 

If one set oneself the task of trying to confuse a man 
so that he could not think clearly nor free himself from the 
perplexity of two opposing theories of life which had been 
instilled into him from childhood, one could not invent any 
means more effectual than the treatment of every young 
man educated in our so-called Christian society. 

It is terrible to think what the churches do to men. But 
if one imagines oneself in the position of the men who 
constitute the Church, we see they could not act differ- 



84 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

entl}^ The churches are placed in a dilemma : the 
Sermon on the Mount or the Nicene Creed — the one 
excludes the other. If a man sincerely believes in the 
Sermon on the Mount, the Nicene Creed must inevitably 
lose all meaning and significance for him, and the Church 
and its representatives together with it. If a man believes 
in the Nicene Creed, that is, in the Church, that is, in those 
who call themselves its representatives, the Sermon on the 
Mount becomes superfluous for him. And therefore the 
churches cannot but make every possible effort to obscure 
the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount, and to attract 
men to themselves. It is only due to the intense zeal of 
the churches in this direction that the influence of the 
churches has lasted hitherto. 

Let the Church stop its work of hypnotizing the masses, 
and deceiving children even for the briefest interval of 
time, and men would begin to understand Christ's teach- 
ing. But this understanding will be the end of the 
churches and all their influence. And therefore the 
churches will not for an instant relax their zeal in the 
business of hypnotizing grown-up people and deceiving 
children. This, then, is the work of the churches : to 
instill a false interpretation of Christ's teaching into men, 
and to prevent a true interpretation of it for the majority 
of so-called believers. 



IS WITHIN you:' 85 

CHAPTER IV. 
CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY MEN OF SCIENCE. 

Attitude of Men of Science to Religions in General — What Religion is, 
and What is its Significance for the Life of Humanity — Three Concep- 
tions of Life — Christian Religion the Expression of the Divine Con- 
ception of Life — Misinterpretation of Christianity by Men of Science, 
who Study it in its External Manifestations Due to their Criticising it 
from Standpoint of Social Conception of Life — Opinion, Resulting 
from this Misinterpretation, that Christ's Moral Teaching is Exagger- 
ated and Cannot be put into Practice — Expression of Divine Conception 
of Life in the Gospel — False Ideas of Men of Science on Christianity 
Proceed from their Conviction that they have an Infallible Method of 
Criticism — From which come Two Misconceptions in Regard to Chris- 
tian Doctrine — First Misconception, that the Teaching Cannot be put 
into Practice, Due to the Christian Religion Directing Life in a Way 
Different from that of the Social Theory of Life — Christianity holds 
up Ideal, does not lay down Rules — To the Animal Force of Man 
Christ Adds the Consciousness of a Divine Force — Christianity Seems 
to Destroy Possibility of Life only when the Ideal held up is Mistaken 
for Rule — Ideal Must Not be Lowered — Life, According to Christ's 
Teaching, is Movement — The Ideal and the Precepts — Second Mis- 
conception Shown in Replacing Love and Service of God by Love and 
Service of Humanity — Men of Science Imagine their Doctrine of 
Service of Humanity and Christianity are Identical — Doctrine of 
Service of Humanity Based on Social Conception of Life — Love for 
Humanity, Logically Deduced from Love of Self, has No Meaning 
because Plumanity is a Fiction — Christian Love Deduced from Love 
of God, Finds its Object in the whole World, not in Humanity Alone 
— Christianity Teaches Man to Live in Accordance with his Divine 
Nature — It Shows that the Essence of the Soul of Man is Love, and 
that his Happiness Ensues from Love of God, whom he Recognizes as 
Love within himself. 

Now I will speak of the other view of Christianity which 
hinders the true understanding of it — the scientific view. 

Churchmen substitute for Christianity the version they 
have framed of it for themselves, and this view of Chris- 
tianity they regard as the one infallibly true one. 



86 «« THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Men of science regard as Christianity only the tenets 
held by the different churches iathe past and present ; and 
finding that these tenets have lost all the significance of 
Christianity, they accept it as a religion which has out- 
lived its age. 

To see clearly how impossible it is to understand the 
Christian teaching from such a point of view, one must 
form for oneself an idea of the place actually held by 
religions in general, by the Christian religion in particular, 
in the life of mankind, and of the significance attributed 
to them by science. 

Just as the individual man cannot live without having 
some theory of the meaning of his life, and is always, 
though often unconsciously, framing his conduct in accord- 
ance with the meaning he attributes to his life, so too asso- 
ciations of men living in similar conditions — nations — can- 
not but have theories of the meaning of their associated 
life and conduct ensuing from those theories. And as the 
individual man, when he attains a fresh stage of growth, 
inevitably changes his philosophy of life, and the grown- 
up man sees a different meaning in it from the child, 
so too associations of men — nations — are bound to 
change their philosophy of life and the conduct ensuing 
from their philosophy, to correspond with their develop- \ 
ment. ^ ■ 

The difference, as regards this, between the individual 
man and humanity as a whole, lies in the fact that the 
individual, in forming the view of life proper to the new 
period of life on which he is entering and the conduct 
resulting from it, benefits by the experience of men who 
have lived before him, who have already passed through 
the stage of growth upon which he is entering. But 
humanity cannot have this aid, because it is always moving 
along a hitherto untrodden track, and has no one to ask 
how to understand life, and to act in the conditions on 



IS WITHIN Your 87 

which it is entering and through which no one has ever 
passed before. 

Nevertheless, just as a man with wife and children can- 
not continue to look at life as he looked at it when he was 
a child, so too in the face of the various changes that are 
taking place, the greater density of population, the estab- 
lishment of communication between different peoples, the 
improvements of the methods of the struggle with nature, 
and the accumulation of knowledge, humanity cannot con- 
tinue to look at life as of old, and it must frame a new 
theory of life, from which conduct may follow adapted 
to the new conditions on which it has entered and is 
entering. 

To meet this need humanity has the special power of 
producing men who give a new meaning to the whole of 
human life — a theory of life from which follow new forms 
of activity quite different from all preceding them. The 
formation of this philosophy of life appropriate to 
humanity in the new conditions on which it is entering, and 
of the practice resulting from it, is what is called religion. 

And therefore, in the first place, religion is not, as 
science imagines, a manifestation which at one time cor- 
responded with the development of humanity, but is after- 
ward outgrown by it. It is a manifestation always inherent 
in the life of humanity, and is as indispensable, as inherent 
in humanity at the present time as at any other. Secondly, 
religion is always the theory of the practice of the future 
and not of the past, and therefore it is clear that investiga- 
tion of past manifestations cannot in any case grasp the 
essence of religion. 

The essence of every religious teaching lies not in the 
desire for a symbolic expression of the forces of nature, 
nor in the dread of these forces, nor in the craving for 
the marvelous, nor in the external forms in which it is 
manifested, as men of science imagine ; the essence of 



SS '^ THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

religion lies in the faculty of men of foreseeing and point- 
ing out the path of life along which humanity must move 
in the discovery of a new theory of life, as a result of which 
the whole future conduct of humanity is changed and dif- 
ferent from all that has been before. 

This faculty of foreseeing the path along which humanity 
must move, is common in a greater or less degree to all 
men. But in all times there have been men in whom this 
faculty was especially strong, and these men have given 
clear and definite expression to what all men felt vaguely, 
and formed a new philosophy of life from which new lines 
of action followed for hundreds and thousands of years. 

Of such philosophies of life we know three ; two have 
already been passed through by humanity, and the third is 
that we are passing through now in Christianity. These 
philosophies of life are three in number, and only three, 
not because we have arbitrarily brought the various 
theories of life together under these three heads, but 
because all men's actions are always based on one of these 
three views of life — because we cannot view life otherwise 
than in these three ways. 

These three views of life are as follows : First, embrac- 
ing the individual, or the animal view of life ; second, 
embracing the society, or the pagan view of life ; third, 
embracing the whole world, or the divine view of life. 

In the first theory of life a man's life is limited to his one 
individuality ; the aim of life is the satisfaction of the will 
of this individuality. In the second theory of life a man's 
life is limited not to his own individuality, but to certain 
societies and classes of individuals : to the tribe, the family, 
the clan, the nation ; the aim of life is limited to the satis- 
faction of the will of those associations of individuals. In 
the third theory of life a man's life is limited not to socie- 
ties and classes of individuals, but extends to the principle 
and source of life — to God. 



IS WITHIN Your 89 

These three conceptions of life form the foundation of 
all the religions that exist or have existed. 

The savage recognizes life only in himself and his per- 
sonal desires. His interest in life is concentrated on him- 
self alone. The highest happiness for him is the fullest 
satisfaction of his desires. The motive power of his life is 
personal enjoyment. His religion consists in propitiating 
his deity and in worshiping his gods, whom he imagines as 
persons living only for their personal aims. 

The civilized pagan recognizes life not in himself alone, 
but in societies of men — in the tribe, the clan, the family, 
the kingdom — and sacrifices his personal good for these 
societies. The motive power of his life is glory. His 
religion consists in the exaltation of the glory of those who 
are allied to him — the founders of his family, his ancestors, 
his rulers — and in worshiping gods who are exclusively pro- 
tectors of his clan, his family, his nation, his government.* 

The man who holds the divine theory of life recognizes 
life not in his own individuality, and not in societies of 
individualities (in the family, the clan, the nation, the tribe, 
or the government), but in the eternal undying source of 
life — in God ; and to fulfill the will of God he is ready to 
sacrifice his individual and family and social welfare. The 
motor power of his life is love. And his religion is the 
worship in deed and in truth of the principle of the whole — 
God. 

The whole historic existence of mankind is nothing else 
than the gradual transition from the personal, animal con- 

* The fact that so many varied forms of existence, as the life of the 
family, of the tribe, of the clan, of the state, and even the life of human- 
ity theoretically conceived by the Positivists, are founded on this social 
or pagan theory of life, does not destroy the unity of this theory of life. 
All these varied forms of life are founded on the same conception, that 
the life of the individual is not a sufficient aim of life — that the meaning 
of life can be found only in societies of individuals. 



90 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

ception of life to the social conception of life, and from the 
social conception of life to the divine conception of life. 
The whole history of the ancient peoples, lasting through 
thousands of years and ending with the history of Rome, is 
the history of the transition from the animal, personal view 
of life to the social view of life. The whole of history 
from the time of the Roman Empire and the appearance of 
Christianity is the history of the transition, through which 
we are still passing now, from the social view of life to the 
divine view of life. 

This view of life is the last, and founded upon it is the 
Christian teaching, which is a guide for the whole of our 
life and lies at the root of all our activity, practical and 
theoretic. Yet men of what is falsely called science, 
pseudo-scientific men, looking at it only in its externals, 
regard it as something outgrown and having no value 
for us. 

Reducing it to its dogmatic side only — to the doctrines 
of the Trinity, the redemption, the miracles, the Church, 
the sacraments, and so on — men of science regard it as 
only one of an immense number of religions which have 
arisen among mankind, and now, they say, having played 
out its part in history, it is outliving its own age and fading 
away before the light of science and of true enlightenment. 

We dome here upon what, in a large proportion of cases, 
forms the source of the grossest errors of mankind. Men 
on a lower level of understanding, when brought into 
contact with phenomena of a higher order, instead of 
making efforts to understand them, to raise themselves up 
to the point of view from which they must look at the sub- 
ject, judge it from their lower standpoint, and the less they 
understand what they are talking about, the more con- 
fidently and unhesitatingly they pass judgment on it. 

To the majority of learned men, looking at the living, 
moral teaching of Christ from the lower standpoint of the 



IS WITHIN Your 91 

State conception of life, this doctrine appears as nothing but 
a very indefinite and incongruous combination of Indian 
asceticism, Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophy, and insub- 
stantial anti-social visions, which have no serious sig- 
nificance for our times. Its whole meaning is con- 
centrated for them in its external manifestations — in 
Catholicism, Protestantism, in certain dogmas, or in the 
conflict with the temporal power. Estimating the value of 
Christianity by these phenomena is like a deaf man's judg- 
ing of the character and quality of music by seeing the 
movements of the musicians. 

The result of this is that all these scientific men, from 
Kant, Strauss, Spencer, and Renan down, do not under- 
stand the meaning of Christ's sayings, do not under- 
stand the significance, the object, or the reason of their 
utterance, do not understand even the question to which 
they form the answer. Yet, without even taking the pains 
to enter into their meaning, they refuse, if unfavorably dis- 
posed, to recognize any reasonableness in his doctrines ; or 
if they want to treat them indulgently, they condescend, 
from the height of their superiority, to correct them, on the 
supposition that Christ meant to express precisely their own 
ideas, but did not succeed in doing so. They behave to 
his teaching much as self-assertive people talk to those 
whom they consider beneath them, often supplying their 
companions' words : " Yes, you mean to say this and 
that." This correction is always with the aim of reduc- 
ing the teaching of the higher, divine conception of life 
to the level of the lower, state conception of life. 

They usually say that the moral teaching of Christianity 
is very fine, but overexaggerated ; that to make it quite 
right we must reject all in it that is superfluous and un- 
necessary to our manner of life. *' And the doctrine that 
asks too much, and requires what cannot be performed, is 
worse than that which requires of men what is possible and 



92 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

consistent with their powers," these learned interpreters of 
Christianity maintain, repeating what was long ago asserted, 
and could not but be asserted, by those who crucified the 
Teacher because they did not understand him — the Jews. 

It seems that in the judgment of the learned men of our 
time the Hebrew law — a tooth for a tooth, and an eye for 
an eye — is a law of just retaliation, known to mankind five 
thousand years before the law of holiness which Christ 
taught in its place. 

It seems that all that has been done by those men who 
understood Christ's teaching literally and lived in accord- 
ance with such an understanding of it, all that has been 
said and done by all true Christians, by all the Christian 
saints, all that is now reforming the world in the shape of 
socialism and communism — is simply exaggeration, not 
worth talking about. 

After eighteen hundred years of education in Christianity 
the civilized world, as represented by its most advanced 
thinkers, holds the conviction that the Christian religion is 
a religion of dogmas ; that its teaching in relation to life is ^, 
unreasonable, and is an exaggeration, subversive of the | 
real lawful obligations of morality consistent with the i 
nature of man ; and that very doctrine of retribution which 
Christ rejected, and in place of which he put his teaching, 
is more practically useful for us. 

To learned men the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by 
force is exaggerated and even irrational. Christianity is 
much better without it, they think, not observing closely 
what Christianity, as represented by them, amounts to. 

They do not see that to say that the doctrine of non- 
resistance to evil is an exaggeration in Christ's teaching is 
just like saying that the statement of the equality of the 
radii of a circle is an exaggeration in the definition of a 
circle. And those who speak thus are acting precisely like 
a man who, having no idea of what a circle is, should declare 



IS WITHIN you:' 93 

that this requirement, that every point of the circumference 
should be an equal distance from the center, is exaggerated. 
To advocate the rejection of Christ's command of non- 
resistance to evil, or its adaptation to the needs of life, 
implies a misunderstanding of the teaching of Christ. 

And those who do so certainly do not understand it. 
They do not understand that this teaching is the institution 
of a new theory of life, corresponding to the new conditions 
on which men have entered now for eighteen hundred 
years, and also the definition of the new conduct of life 
which results from it. They do not believe that Christ 
meant to say what he said ; or he seems to them to have 
said what he said in the Sermon on the Mount and in other 
places accidentally, or through his lack of intelligence or 
of cultivation.* 

Matt. vi. 25-34 : *' Therefore I say unto you, Take no 
thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall 

* Here, for example, is a characteristic view of that kind from the 
American iouvnal the Arena (October, 1890): "New Basis of Church 
Life."* Treating of the significance of the Sermon on the Mount and non- 
resistance to evil in particular, the author, being under no necessity, like 
the Churchmen, to hide its significance, says : 

* * Christ in fact preached complete communism and anarchy ; but one 
must learn to regard Christ always in his historical and psychological 
significance. Like every advocate of the love of humanity, Christ went 
to the furthest extreme in his teaching. Every step forward toward the 
moral perfection of humanity is always guided by men who see nothing 
but their vocation. Christ, in no disparaging sense be it said, had the 
typical temperament of such a reformer. And therefore we must remem- 
ber that his precepts cannot be understood literally as a complete 
philosophy of life. We ought to analyze his words with respect for 
them, but in the spirit of criticism, accepting what is true," etc. 

Christ would have been happy to say what he ought, but he was not 
able to express himself as exactly and clearly as we can in the spirit of 
criticism, and therefore let us correct him. All that he said about 
meekness, sacrifice, lowliness, not caring for the morrow, was said by 
accident, through lack of knowing how to express himself scientifically. 



94 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not 
the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ? Be- 
hold the fowls of the air ; for they sow not, neither do they 
reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly Father 
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they ? Which of 
you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature ? 
And why take ye thought for raiment ? Consider the lilies of 
the field how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin ; 
and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory 
was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so 
clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow 
is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe 
you, O ye of little faith ? Therefore take no thought, saying, 
What shall we eat ? or, What shall we drink ? or. Where- 
withal shall we be clothed ? (For after all these things do 
the Gentiles seek), for your heavenly Father knoweth that 
ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the king- 
dom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for 
the morrow ; for the morrow shall take thought for the 
things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." 
Luke xii. 33-34 : " Sell that ye have, and give alms ; pro- 
vide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the 
heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither 
moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will 
your heart be also." Sell all thou hast and follow me ; and 
he who will not leave father, or mother, or children, or 
brothers, or fields, or house, he cannot be my disciple. 
Deny thyself, take up thy cross each day and follow me. 
My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to per- 
form his works. Not my will, but thine be done ; not 
what I will, but as thou wilt. Life is to do not one's will, 
but the will of God. 

All these principles appear to men who regard them 
from the standpoint of a lower conception of life as the 



IS WITHIN Your 95 

expression of an impulsive enthusiasm, having no direct 
application to life. These principles, however, follow from 
the Christian theory of life, just as logically as the prin- 
ciples of paying a part of one's private gains to the com- 
monwealth and of sacrificing one's life in defense of one's 
country follow from the state theory of life. 

As the man of the state conception of life said to the 
savage : Reflect, bethink yourself ! The life of your indi- 
viduality cannot be true life, because that life is pitiful and 
passing. But the life of a society and succession of indi- 
viduals, family, clan, tribe, or state, goes on living, and 
therefore a man must sacrifice his own individuality for the 
life of the family or the state. In exactly the same way the 
Christian doctrine says to the man of the social, state con- 
ception of life, Repent ye — }AerayoS,ere — /*. <f., bethink your- 
self, or you will be ruined. Understand that this casual, 
personal life which now comes into being and to-morrow is 
no more can have no permanence, that no external means, 
no construction of it can give it consecutiveness and per- 
manence. Take thought and understand that the life you 
are living is not real life — the life of the family, of society, 
of the state will not save you from annihilation. The true, 
the rational life is only possible for man according to the 
measure in which he can participate, not in the family or 
the state, but in the source of life — the Father ; according 
to the measure in which he can merge his life in the life of 
the Father. Such is undoubtedly the Christian conception 
of life, visible in every utterance of the Gospel. 

One may not share this view of life, one may reject it, 
one may show its inaccuracy and its erroneousness, but we 
cannot judge of the Christian teaching without mastering 
this view of life. Still less can one criticise a subject on a 
higher plane from a lower point of view. From the base- 
ment one cannot judge of the effect of the spire. But this 
is just what the learned critics of the day try to do. For 



96 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

they share the erroneous idea of the orthodox believers 
that they are in possession of certain infallible means for 
investigating a subject. They fancy if they apply their 
so-called scientific methods of criticism, there can be no 
doubt of their conclusion being correct. 

This testing the subject by the fancied infallible method 
of science is the principal obstacle to understanding the 
Christian religion for unbelievers, for so-called educated 
people. From this follow all the mistakes made by scientific 
men about the Christian religion, and especially two strange 
misconceptions which, more than everything else, hinder 
them from a correct understanding of it. One of these 
misconceptions is that the Christian moral teaching cannot 
be carried out, and that therefore it has either no force at 
all — that is, it should not be accepted as the rule of con- 
duct — or it must be transformed, adapted to the limits 
within which its fulfillment is possible in our society. 
Another misconception is that the Christian doctrine of 
love of God, and therefore of his service, is an obscure, 
mystic principle, which gives no definite object for love, 
and should therefore be replaced by the more exact and 
comprehensible principles of love for men and the service 
of humanity. 

The first misconception in regard to the impossibility of 
following the principle is the result of men of the state con- 
ception of life unconsciously taking that conception as the 
standard by which the Christian religion directs men, and 
taking the Christian principle of perfection as the rule by 
which that life is to be ordered ; they think and say that to 
follow Christ's teaching is impossible, because the complete 
fulfilment of all that is required by this teaching would put 
an end to life. ^* If a man were to carry out all that Christ 
teaches, he would destroy his own life ; and if all men 
carried it out, then the human race would come to an end/' 
they say. 



IS WITHIN you:' 97 

" If we take no thought for the morrow, what we shall 
eat and what we shall drink, and wherewithal we shall be 
clothed, do not defend our life, nor resist evil by force, lay 
down our life for others, and observe perfect chastity, the 
human race cannot exist," they say. 

And they are perfectly right if they take the principle of 
perfection given by Christ's teaching as a rule which every- 
one is bound to fulfill, just as in the state principles of life 
everyone is bound to carry out the rule of paying taxes, 
supporting the law, and so on. 

The misconception is based precisely on the fact that 
the teaching of Christ guides men differently from the way 
in which the precepts founded on the lower conception of 
life guide men. The precepts of the state conception of 
life only guide men by requiring of them an exact fulfill- 
ment of rules or laws. Christ's teaching guides men by 
pointing them to the infinite perfection of their heavenly 
Father, to which every man independently and voluntarily 
struggles, whatever the degree of his imperfection in the 
present. 

The misunderstanding of men who judge of the Christian 
principle from the point of view of the state principle, con- 
sists in the fact that on the supposition that the perfection 
which Christ points to, can be fully attained, they ask 
themselves (just as they ask the same question on the sup- 
position that state laws will be carried out) what will be 
the result of all this being carried out? This supposition 
cannot be made, because the perfection held up to Chris- 
tians is infinite and can never be attained ; and Christ lays 
down his principle, having in view the fact that absolute 
perfection can never be attained, but that striving toward 
absolute, infinite perfection will continually increase the 
blessedness of men, and that this blessedness may be 
increased to infinity thereby. 

Christ is teaching not angels, but men, living and moving 



98 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

in the animal life. And so to this animal force of move- 
ment Christ, as it were, applies the new force — the recog- 
nition of Divine perfection — and thereby directs the move- 
ment by the resultant of these two forces. 

To suppose that human life is going in the direction to 
which Christ pointed it, is just like supposing that a little 
boat afloat on a rapid river, and directing its course almost 
exactly against the current, will progress in that direction. 

Christ recognizes the existence of both sides of the 
parallelogram, of both eternal indestructible forces of 
which the life of man is compounded : the force of his 
animal nature and the force of the consciousness of kin- 
ship to God. Saying nothing of the animal force which 
asserts itself, remains always the same, and is therefore 
independent of human will, Christ speaks only of the 
Divine force, calling upon a man to know it more closely, 
to set it more free from all that retards it, and to carry it 
to a higher degree of intensity. 

In the process of liberating, of strengthening this force, 
the true life of man, according to Christ's teaching, con- 
sists. The true life, according to preceding religions, 
consists in carrying out rules, the law ; according to 
Christ's teaching it consists in an ever closer approxima- 
tion to the divine perfection held up before every man, and 
recognized within himself by every man, in an ever closer 
and closer approach to the perfect fusion of his will in the 
will of God, that fusion toward which man strives, and the 
attainment of which would be the destruction of the life we 
know. 

The divine perfection is the asymptote of human life to 
which it is always striving, and always approaching, though 
it can only be reached in infinity. 

The Christian religion seems to exclude the possibility of 
life only when men mistake the pointing to an ideal as the 
laying down of a rule. It is only then that the principles 



IS WITHIN Your 99 

presented in Christ's teaching appear to be destructive of 
life. These principles, on the contrary, are the only ones 
that make true life possible. Without these principles true 
life could not be possible. 

" One ought not to expect so much,'* is what people 
usually say in discussing the requirements of the Christian 
religion. ^* One cannot expect to take absolutely no 
thought for the morrow, as is said in the Gospel, but 
only not to take too much thought for it ; one cannot give 
away all to the poor, but one must give away a certain 
definite part ; one need not aim at virginity, but one must 
avoid debauchery ; one need not forsake wife and children, 
but one must not give too great a place to them in one's 
heart," and so on. 

But to speak like this is just like telling a man who is 
struggling on a swift river and is directing his course 
against the current, that it is impossible to cross the river 
rowing against the current, and that to cross it he must 
float in the direction of the point he wants to reach. 

In reality, in order to reach the place to which he wants 
to go, he must row with all his strength toward a point 
much higher up. 

To let go the requirements of the ideal means not only 
to diminish the possibility of perfection, but to make an 
end of the ideal itself. The ideal that has power over men 
is not an ideal invented by someone, but the ideal that 
every man carries within his soul. Only this ideal of com- 
plete infinite perfection has power over men, and stimulates 
them to action. A moderate perfection loses its power of 
influencing men's hearts. 

Christ's teaching only has power when it demands abso- 
lute perfection — that is, the fusion of the divine nature 
which exists in every man's soul with the will of God — the 
union of the Son with the Father. Life according to 
Christ's teaching consists of nothing but this setting free 



lOO *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

of the Son of God, existing in every man, from the animal, 
and in bringing him closer to the Father. 

The animal existence of a man does not constitute 
human life alone. Life, according to the will of God only, 
is also not human life. Human life is a combination of the 
animal life and the divine life. And the more this com- 
bination approaches to the divine life, the more life there 
is in it. 

Life, according to the Christian religion, is a progress 
toward the divine perfection. No one condition, accord- 
ing to this doctrine, can be higher or lower than another. 
Every condition, according to this doctrine, is only a par- 
ticular stage, of no consequence in itself, on the way toward 
unattainable perfection, and therefore in itself it does not 
imply a greater or lesser degree of life. Increase of life, 
according to this, consists in nothing but the quickening of 
the progress toward perfection. And therefore the prog- 
ress toward perfection of the publican Zaccheus, of the 
woman that was a sinner, and of the robber on the cross, 
implies a higher degree of life than the stagnant righteous- 
ness of the Pharisee. And therefore for this religion there 
cannot be rules which it is obligatory to obey. The man 
who is at a lower level but is moving onward toward per- 
fection is living a more moral, a better life, is more fully 
carrying out Christ's teaching, than the man on a much 
higher level of morality who is not moving onward toward 
perfection. 

It is in this sense that the lost sheep is dearer to the 
Father than those that were not lost. The prodigal son, 
the piece of money lost and found again, were more 
precious than those that were not lost. 

The fulfillment of Christ's teaching consists in moving 
away from self toward God. It is obvious that there can- 
not be definite laws and rules for this fulfillment of the 
teaching. Every degree of perfection and every degree of 



IS WITHIN Your lOl 

imperfection are equal in it ; no obedience to laws consti- 
tutes a fulfillment of this doctrine, and therefore for it there 
can be no binding rules and laws. 

From this fundamental distinction between the religion 
of Christ and all preceding religions based on the state 
conception of life, follows a corresponding difference in the 
special precepts of the state theory and the Christian pre- 
cepts. The precepts of the state theory of life insist for 
the most part on certain practical prescribed acts, by which 
men are justified and secure of being right. The Christian 
precepts (the commandment of love is not a precept in the 
strict sense of the word, but the expression of the very 
essence of the religion) are the five commandments of the 
Sermon on the Mount — all negative in character. They 
show only what at a certain stage of development of 
humanity men may not do. 

These commandments are, as it were, signposts on the 
endless road to perfection, toward which humanity is mov- 
ing, showing the point of perfection which is possible at a 
certain period in the development of humanity. 

Christ has given expression in the Sermon on the Mount 
to the eternal ideal toward which men are spontaneously 
struggling, and also the degree of attainment of it to which 
men may reach in our times. 

The ideal is not to desire to do ill to anyone, not to pro- 
voke ill will, to love all men. The precept, showing the 
level below which we cannot fall in the attainment of this 
ideal, is the prohibition of evil speaking. And that is the 
first command. 

The ideal is perfect chastity, even in thought. The pre- 
cept, showing the level below which we cannot fall in the 
attainment of this ideal, is that of purity of married life, 
avoidance of debauchery. That is the second command. 

The ideal is to take no thought for the future, to live in 
the present moment. The precept, showing the level below 



I02 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

which we cannot fall, is the prohibition of swearing, of 
promising anything in the future. And that is the third 
command. 

The ideal is never for any purpose to use force. The 
precept, showing the level below which we cannot fall is 
that of returning good for evil, being patient under wrong, 
giving the cloak also. That is the fourth command. 

The ideal is to love the enemies who hate us. The pre- 
cept, showing the level below which we cannot fall, is not 
to do evil to our enemies, to speak well of them, and to 
make no difference between them and our neighbors. 

All these precepts are indications of what, on our journey 
to perfection, we are already fully able to avoid, and what 
we must labor to attain now, and what we ought by degrees 
to translate into instinctive and unconscious habits. But 
these precepts, far from constituting the whole of Christ's 
teaching and exhausting it, are simply stages on the way to 
perfection. These precepts must and will be followed by 
higher and higher precepts on the way to the perfection 
held up by the religion. 

And therefore it is essentially a part of the Christian 
religion to make demands higher than those expressed in 
its precepts ; and by no means to diminish the demands 
either of the ideal itself, or of the precepts, as people 
imagine who judge it from the standpoint of the social con- 
ception of life. 

So much for one misunderstanding of the scientific men, 
in relation to the import and aim of Christ's teaching. 
Another misunderstanding arising from the same source 
consists in substituting love for men, the service of human- 
ity, for the Christian principles of love for God and his 
service. 

The Christian doctrine to love God and serve him, and 
only as a result of that love to love and serve one's neigh- 
bor, seems to scientific men obscure, mystic, and arbitrary. 



IS WITHIN YOUr 103 

And they would absolutely exclude the obligation of love 
/ and service of God, holding that the doctrine of love for 
men, for humanity alone, is far more clear, tangible, and 
reasonable. 

Scientific men teach in theory that the only good and 
rational life is that which is devoted to the service of the 
whole of humanity. That is for them the import of the 
Christian doctrine, and to that they reduce Christ's teach- 
ing. They seek confirmation of their own doctrine in the 
Gospel, on the supposition that the two doctrines are really 
the same. 

This idea is an absolutely mistaken one. The Christian 
doctrine has nothing in common with the doctrine of the 
Positivists, Communists, and all the apostles of the univer- 
sal brotherhood of mankind, based on the general advantage 
of such a brotherhood. They differ from one another espe- 
cially in Christianity's having a firm and clear basis in the 
human soul, while love for humanity is only a theoretical 
deduction from analogy. 

The doctrine of love for humanity alone is based on the 
social conception of life. 

The essence of the social conception of life consists in 
the transference of the aim of the individual life to the life 
of societies of individuals : family, clan, tribe, or state. 
T!'his transference is accomplished easily and naturally in 
its earliest forms, in the transference of the aim of life from 
the individual to the family and the clan. The transference 
to the tribe or the nation is more difficult and requires 
special training. And the transference of the sentiment 
to the state is the furthest limit which the process can 
reach. 

To love one's self is natural to everyone, and no one needs 
any encouragement to do so. To love one's clan who sup- 
port and protect one, to love one's wife, the joy and help of 
one's existence, one's children, the hope and consolation of 



104 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

one's life, and one's parents, who have given one life and 
education, is natural. And such love, though far from 
being so strong as love of self, is met with pretty often. 

To love — for one's own sake, through personal pride — 
one's tribe, one's nation, though not so natural, is neverthe- 
less common. Love of one's own people who are of the 
same blood, the same tongue, and the same religion as one's 
self is possible, though far from being so strong as love of 
self, or even love of family or clan. But love for a state, 
such as Turkey, Germany, England, Austria, or Russia is a 
thing almost impossible. And though it is zealously in- 
culated, it is only an imagined sentiment ; it has no exist- 
ence in reality. And at that limit man's power of trans- 
ferring his interest ceases, and he cannot feel any direct 
sentiment for that fictitious entity. The Positivists, how- 
ever, and all the apostles of fraternity on scientific principles, 
without taking into consideration the weakening of senti- 
ment in proportion to the extension of its object, draw 
further deductions in theory in the same direction. ** Since," 
they say, " it was for the advantage of the individual to 
extend his personal interest to the family, the tribe, and sub- 
sequently to the nation and the state, it would be still more 
advantageous to extend his interest in societies of men to 
the whole of mankind, and so all to live for humanity just 
as men live for the family or the state." 

Theoretically it follows, indeed, having extended the 
love and interest for the personality to the family, the tribe, 
and thence to the nation and the state, it would be perfectly 
logical for men to save themselves the strife and calami- 
ties which result from the division of mankind into nations 
and states by extending their love to the whole of human- 
ity. This would be most logical, and theoretically nothing 
would appear more natural to its advocates, who do not 
observe that love is a sentiment which may or may not be 
felt, but which it is useless to advocate ; and moreover, 



IS WITHIN' Your 105 

that love must have an object, and that humanity is not an 
object. It is nothing but a fiction. 

The family, the tribe, even the state were not invented 
by men, but formed themselves spontaneously, like ant- 
hills or swarms of bees, and have a real existence. The 
man who, for the sake of his own animal personality, loves 
his family, knows whom he loves : Anna, Dolly, John, 
Peter, and so on. The man who loves his tribe and takes 
pride in it, knows that he loves all the Guelphs or all the 
Ghibelli*nes ; the man who loves the state knows that he 
loves France bounded by the Rhine, and the Pyrenees, and 
its principal city Paris, and its history and so on. But the 
man who loves humanity — what does he love? There is 
such a thing as a state, as a nation ; there is the abstract 
conception of man ; but humanity as a concrete idea does 
not, and cannot exist. 

Humanity ! Where is the definition of humanity ? 
Where does it end and where does it begin ? Does human- 
ity end with the savage, the idiot, the dipsomaniac, or the 
madman ? If we draw a line excluding from humanity its 
lowest representatives, where are we to draw the line? 
Shall we exclude the negroes like the Americans, or the 
Hindoos like some Englishmen, or the Jews like some 
others? If we include all men without exception, why 
should we not include also the higher animals, many of 
whom are superior to the lowest specimens of the human 
rac'e. 

We know nothing of humanity as an eternal object, and 
we know nothing of its limits. Humanity is a fiction, and 
it is impossible to love it. It would, doubtless, be very 
advantageous if men could love humanity just as they love 
their family. It would be very advantageous, as Commun- 
ists advocate, to replace the competitive, individualistic 
organization of men's activity by a social universal organi- 
sation, so that each would be for all and all for each. 



io6 ** THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Only there are no motives to lead men to do this. The 
Positivists, the Communists, and all the apostles of frater- 
nity on scientific principles advocate the extension to the 
whole of humanity of the love men feel for themselves, 
their families, and the state. They forget that the love 
which they are discussing is a personal love, which might 
expand in a rarefied form to embrace a man's native 
country, but which disappears before it can embrace an 
artificial state such as Austria, England, or Turkey, and 
which* we cannot even conceive of in relation to all human- 
ity, an absolutely mystic conception. 

** A man loves himself (his animal personality), he loves 
his family, he even loves his native country. Why should 
he not love humanity ? That would be such an excellent 
thing. And by the way, it is precisely what is taught by 
Christianity.** So think the advocates of Positivist, Com- 
munistic, or Socialistic fraternity. 

It would indeed be an excellent thing. But it can never 
be, for the love that is based on a personal or social con- 
ception of life can never rise beyond love for the state. 

The fallacy of the argument lies in the fact that the 
social conception of life, on which love for family and 
nation is founded, rests itself on love of self, and that love 
grows weaker and weaker as it is extended from self to 
family, tribe, nationality, and state ; and in the state we 
reach the furthest limit beyond which it cannot go. 

The necessity of extending the sphere of love is beyond 
dispute. But in reality the possibility of this love is de- 
stroyed by the necessity of extending its object indefinitely. 
And thus the insufficiency of personal human love is made 
manifest. 

And here the advocates of Positivist, Communistic, 
Socialistic fraternity propose to draw upon Christian love 
to make up the default of this bankrupt human love ; but 
Christian love only in its results, not in its foundations. 



IS WITHIN you:' t67 

They propose love for humanity alone, apart from love for 
God. 

But such a love cannot exist. There is no motive to 
1 produce it. Christian love is the result only of the Chris- 
tian conception of life, in which the aim of life is to love 
and serve God. 

The social conception of life has led men, by a natural 
transition from love of self and then of family, tribe, nation, 
and state, to a consciousness of the necessity of love for 
humanity, a conception which has no definite limits and 
extends to all living things. And this necessity for love 
of what awakens no kind of sentiment in a man is a con- 
tradiction which cannot be solved by the social theory of 
life. 

The Christian doctrine in its full significance can alone 
solve it, by giving a new meaning to life. Christianity 
recognizes love of self, of family, of nation, and of humanity, 
and not only of humanity, but of everything living, every- 
thing existing ; it recognizes the necessity of an infinite 
extension of the sphere of love. But the object of this 
love is not found outside self in societies of individuals, 
nor in the external world, but within self, in the divine 
self whose essence is that very love, which the animal self 
, is brought to feel the need of through its consciousness of 
its own perishable nature. 

The difference between the Christian doctrine and those 
which preceded it is that the social doctrine said : " Live in 
opposition to your nature [understanding by this only the 
animal nature], make it subject to the external law of 
family, society, and state.'* Christianity says : ** Live 
according to your nature [understanding by this the divine 
nature] ; do not make it subject to anything — neither you 
(an animal self) nor that of others — and you will attain the 
very aim to which you are striving when you subject your 
external self/' 



lo8 «^ THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

The Christian doctrine brings a man to the elementary 
consciousness of self, only not of the animal self, but of 
the divine self, the divine spark, the sel^ as the Son of God, 
as much God as the Father himself, though confined in an 
animal husk. The consciousness of being the Son of God, 
whose chief characteristic is love, satisfies the need for the 
extension of the sphere of love to which the man of the 
social conception of life had been brought. For the latter, 
the welfare of the personality demanded an ever-widening 
extension of the sphere of love ; love was a necessity and 
was confined to certain objects — self, family, society. With 
the Christian conception of life, love is not a necessity and 
is confined to no object ; it is the essential faculty of the 
human soul. Man loves not because it is his interest to/ 
love this or that, but because love is the essence of his soul,^- : 
because he cannot but love. 

The Christian doctrine shows man that the essence of 
his soul is love — that his happiness depends not on loving 
this or that object, but on loving the principle of the whole 
— God, whom he recognizes within himself as love, and 
therefore he loves all things and all men. 

In this is the fundamental difference between the Chris- 
tian doctrine and the doctrine of the Positivists, and all 
the theorizers about universal brotherhood on non-christian 
principles. 

Such are the two principal misunderstandings relating to 
the Christian religion, from which the greater number of 
false reasonings about it proceed. The first consists in 
the belief that Christ's teaching instructs men, like all pre- 
vious religions, by rules, which they are bound to follow, 
and that these rules cannot be fulfilled. The second is the 
idea that the whole purport of Christianity is to teach men 
to live advantageously together, as one family, and that to 
attain this we need only follow the rule of love to humanity, 
dismissing all thought of love of God altogether. 



IS WITHIN Your 109 

The mistaken notion of scientific men that the essence 
of Christianity consists in the supernatural, and that its 
moral teaching is impracticable, constitutes another reason 
of the failure of men of the present day to understand 
Christianity. 



CHAPTER V. 

CONTRADICTION BETWEEN OUR LIFE AND OUR CHRISTIAN 
CONSCIENCE. 

Men Think they can Accept Christianity without Altering their Life — 
Pagan Conception of Life does not Correspond with Present Stage of 
Development of Humanity, and Christian Conception Alone Can Accord 
with it — Christian Conception of Life not yet Understood by Men, but 
the Progress of Life itself will Lead them Inevitably to Adopt it — The 
Requirements of a New Theory of Life Always Seem Incomprehensible, 
Mystic, and Supernatural — So Seem the Requirements of the Christian 
Theory of Life to the Majority of Men — The Absorption of the Christian 
Conception of Life will Inevitably be Brought About as the Result of 
Material and Spiritual Causes — The Fact of Men Knowing the Require- 
ments of the Higher View of Life, and yet Continuing to Preserve 
Inferior Organizations of Life, Leads to Contradictions and Sufferings 
which Embitter Existence and Must Result in its Transformation — The 
Contradictions of our Life — The Economic Contradiction and the 
Suffering Induced by it for Rich and Poor Alike — The Political Con- 
tradiction and the Sufferings Induced by Obedience to the Laws of the 
State — The International Contradiction and the Recognition of it by 
Contemporaries : Komarovsky, Ferri, Booth, Passy, Lawson, Wilson, 
Bartlett, Defourney, Moneta — The Striking Character of the Military 
Contradiction. 

There are many reasons why Christ's teaching is not 
understood. One reason is that people suppose they have 
understood it when they have decided, as the Churchmen 
do, that it was revealed by supernatural means, or when 
they have studied, as the scientific men do, the external 
forms in which it has been manifested. Another reason is 



X 



no ♦' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

the mistaken notion that it is impracticable, and ought to 
be replaced by the doctrine of love for humanity. But the 
principal reason, which is the source of all the other mis- 
taken ideas about it, is the notion that Christianity is a doc- 
trine which can be accepted or rejected without any change 
of life. 

Men who are used to the existing order of things, who 
like it and dread its being changed, try to take the doc- 
trine as a collection of revelations and rules which one can 
accept without their modifying one's life. While Christ's 
teaching is not only a doctrine which gives rules which a 
man must follow, it unfolds a new meaning in life, and 
defines a whole world of human activity quite different 
from all that has preceded it and appropriate to the period 
on which man is entering. 

The life of humanity changes and advances, like the life 
of the individual, by stages, and every stage has a theory 
of life appropriate to it, which is inevitably absorbed by 
men. Those who do not absorb it consciously, absorb it 
unconsciously. It is the same with the changes in the 
beliefs of peoples and of all humanity as it is with the 
changes of belief of individuals. If the father of a family 
continues to be guided in his conduct by his childish con- 
ceptions of life, life becomes so difficult for him that he 
involuntarily seeks another philosophy and readily absorbs 
that which is appropriate to his age. 

That is just what is happening now to humanity at this 
time of transition through which we are passing, from the 
pagan conception of life to the Christian. The socialized 
man of the present day is brought by experience of life 
itself to the necessity of abandoning the pagan conception 
of life, which is inappropriate to the present stage of 
humanity, and of submitting to the obligation of the 
Christian doctrines, the truths of which, however cor- 
rupt and misinterpreted, are still known to him, and alone 



IS WITHIN Your 111 

offer him a solution of the contradictions surrounding 
him. 

If the requirements of the Christian doctrine seem 
strange and even alarming to the man of the social theory 
of life, no less strange, incomprehensible, and alarming to 
the savage*of ancient times seemed the requirements of the 
social doctrine when it was not fully understood and could 
not be foreseen in its results. 

** It is unreasonable," said the savage, " to sacrifice my 
peace of mind or my life in defense of something incom- 
prehensible, impalpable, and conventional — family, tribe, or 
nation ; and above all it is unsafe to put oneself at the dis- 
posal of the power of others." 

But the time came when the savage, on one hand, felt, 
though vaguely, the value of the social conception of life, 
and of its chief motor power, social censure, or social 
approbation — glory, and when, on the other hand, the diffi- 
culties of his personal life became so great that he could 
not continue to believe in the value of his old theory of life. 
\Then he accepted the social, state theory of life and sub- 
mitted to it. 

That is just what the man of the social theory of life is 
passing through now. 

"It is unreasonable," says the socialized man, ** to sacri- 
fice my welfare and that of my family and my country in 
order to fulfill some higher law, which requires me to re- 
nounce my most natural and virtuous feelings of love of 
self, of family, of kindred, and of country ; and above all, 
it is unsafe to part with the security of life afforded by the 
organization of government." 

But the time is coming when, on one hand, the vague 
consciousness in his soul of the higher law, of love to God 
and his neighbor, and, on the other hand, the suffering, 
resulting from the contradictions of life, will force the man 
to reject the social theory and to assimilate the new one 



112 '' THE KINGDOM OP GOD 

prepared ready for him, which solves all the contradictions 
and removes all his sufferings — the Christian theory of life. 
And this time has now come. 

We, who thousands of years ago passed through the 
transition, from the personal, animal view of life to the 
socialized view, imagine that that transition was an inevita- 
ble and natural one ; but this transition through which we 
have been passing for the last eighteen hundred years 
seems arbitrary, unnatural, and alarming. But we only 
fancy this because that first transition has been so fully 
completed that the practice attained by it has become un- 
conscious and instinctive in us, while the present transition 
is not yet over and we have to complete it consciously. 

It took ages, thousands of years, for the social conception 
of life to permeate men's consciousness. It went through 
various forms and has now passed into the region of the 
instinctive through inheritance, education, and habit. And 
therefore it seems natural to us. But five thousand years 
/ago it seemed as unnatural and alarming to men as the 
u Christian doctrine in its true sense seems to-day. 

We think to-day that the requirements of the Christian 
doctrine — of universal brotherhood, suppression of national 
distinctions, abolition of private property, and the strange 
injunction of non-resistance to evil by force — demand what 
is impossible. But it was just the same thousands of years 
ago, with every social or even family duty, such as the duty 
of parents to support their children, of the young to main- 
tain the old, of fidelity in marriage. Still more strange, and 
even unreasonable, seemed the state duties of submitting to 
the appointed authority, and paying taxes, and fighting in 
defense of the country, and so on. All such requirements 
seem simple, comprehensible, and natural to us to-day, and 
we see nothing mysterious or alarming in them. But three 
or five thousand years ago they seemed to require what was 
impossible. 



IS WITHIN Your 113 

The social conception of life served as the basis of reli- 
gion because at the time when it was first presented to men 
it seemed to them absolutely incomprehensible, mystic, and 
supernatural. Now that we have outlived that phase of the 
life of humanity, we understand the rational grounds for 
uniting men in families, communities, and states. But in 
antiquity the duties involved by such association were pre- 
sented under cover of the supernatural and were confirmed 
by it. 

The patriarchal religions exalted the family, the tribe, the 
nation. State religions deified emperors and states. Even 
now most ignorant people — like our peasants, who call the 
Tzar an earthly god — obey state laws, not through any 
rational recognition of their necessity, nor because they 
have any conception of the meaning of state, but through a 
religious sentiment. 

In precisely the same way the Christian doctrine is pre- 
sented to men of the social or heathen theory of life to-day, 
in the guise of a supernatural religion, though there is in 
reality nothing mysterious, mystic, or supernatural about it. 
It is simply the theory of life which is appropriate to the 
present degree of material development, the present stage 
of growth of humanity, and which must therefore inevitably 
be accepted. 

The time will come — it is already coming — when the 
Christian principles of equality and fraternity, community 
of property, non-resistance of evil by force, will appear just 
as natural and simple as the principles of family or social 
life seem to us now. 

Humanity can no more go backward in its development 
than the individual man. Men have outlived the social, 
family, and state conceptions of life. Now they must 
go forward and assimilate the next and higher concep- 
tion of life, which is what is now taking place. This 
change is brought about in two ways: consciously 



114 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

through spiritual causes, and unconsciously through mate- 
rial causes. 

Just as the individual man very rarely changes his way 

of life at the dictates of his reason alone, but generally 

* , continues to live as before, in spite of the new interests and 

\ \ aims revealed to him by his reason, and only alters his way 

\ of living when it has become absolutely opposed to his 

^^ conscience, and consequently intolerable to him ; so, too, 

humanity, long after it has learnt through its religions the 

new interests and aims of life, toward which it must strive, 

continues in the majority of its representatives to live as 

before, and is only brought to accept the new conception by 

finding it impossible to go on living its old life as before. 

Though the need of a change of life is preached by the 
religious leaders and recognized and realized by the most 
intelligent men, the majority, in spite of their reverential 
attitude to their leaders, that is, their faith in their teach- 
ing, continue to be guided by the old theory of life in their 
present complex existence. As though the father of a 
family, knowing how he ought to behave at his age, should 
yet continue through habit and thoughtlessness to live in 
the same childish way as he did in boyhood. 

That is just what is happening in the transition of 
humanity from one stage to another, through which we are 
passing now. Humanity has outgrown its social stage and 
has entered upon a new period. It recognizes the doctrine 
which ought to be made the basis of life in this new period. 
But through inertia it continues to keep up the old forms 
of life. From this inconsistency between the new concep- 
tion of life and practical life follows a whole succession of 
contradictions and sufferings which embitter our life and 
necessitate its alteration. 

One need only compare the practice of life with the 
theory of it, to be dismayed at the glaring antagonism 
between our conditions of life and our conscience. 



IS WITHIN Your 115 

Our whole life is in flat contradiction with all we know, 
and with all we regard as necessary and right. This con- 
tradiction runs through everything, in economic life, in 
political life, and in international life. As though we had 
forgotten what w^e knew and put away for a time the 
principles we believe in (we cannot help still believing in 
them because they are the only foundation we have to base 
our life on) we do the very opposite of all that our con- 
science and our common sense require of us. 

We are guided in economical, political, and international 
questions by the principles which were appropriate to men 
of three or five thousand years ago, though they are directly 
opposed to our conscience and the conditions of life in 
which we are placed to-day. 

It was very well for the man of ancient times to live in a 
society based on the division of mankind into masters and 
slaves, because he believed that such a distinction was 
decreed by God and must always exist. But is such a 
belief possible in these days? 

The man of antiquity could believe he had the right to 
enjoy the good things of this world at the expense of other 
men, and to keep them in misery for generations, since he 
believed that men came from different origins, were base or 
noble in blood, children of Ham or of Japhet. The greatest 
sages of the world, the teachers of humanity, Plato and 
Aristotle, justified the existence of slaves and demonstrated 
the lawfulness of slavery ; and even three centuries ago, 
the men who described an imaginary society of the future, 
Utopia, could not conceive of it without slaves. 

Men of ancient and mediaeval times believed, firmly 
believed, that men are not equal, that the only true men 
are Persians, or Greeks, or Romans, or Franks. But we 
cannot believe that now. And people who sacrifice them- 
selves for the principles of aristocracy and of patriotism 
to-day, don't believe and can't believe what they assert. 



) Ii6 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

^ AVe all know and cannot help knowing — even though we 

may never have heard the idea clearly expressed, may never 
have read of it, and may never have put it into words, still 
through unconsciously imbibing the Christian sentiments 
that are in the air — with our whole heart we know and can- 
not escape knowing the fundamental truth of the Christian 
doctrine, that we are all sons of one Father, wherever we 
may live and whatever language we may speak ; we are all 
brothers and are subject to the same law of love implanted ^ 
by our common Father in our hearts. 

Whatever the opinions and degree of education of a man 
of to-day, whatever his shade of liberalism, whatever his 
school of philosophy, or of science, or of economics, 
however ignorant or superstitious he may be, every man 
of the present day knows that all men have an equal 
right to life and the good things of life, and that one set 
of people are no better nor worse than another, that all 
are equal. Everyone knows this, beyond doubt ; every- 
one feels it in his whole being. Yet at the same time 
everyone sees all round him the division of men into two 
castes — the one, laboring, oppressed, poor, and suffering, 
the other idle, oppressing, luxurious, and profligate. And 
everyone not only sees this, but voluntarily or involun- 
tarily, in one way or another, he takes part in maintaining 
this distinction which his conscience condemns. And he 
cannot help suffering from the consciousness of this con- 
tradiction and his share in it. 

Whether he be master or slave, the man of to-day can- 
not help constantly feeling the painful opposition between 
his conscience and actual life, and the miseries resulting 
from it. 

The toiling masses, the immense majority of mankind 
who are suffering under the incessant, meaningless, and 
hopeless toil and privation in which their whole life is 
swallowed up, still find their keenest suffering in the glaring 



IS WITHIN YOU,'' 117 

contrast between what is and what ought to be, according 
to all the beliefs held by themselves, and those who have 
brought them to that condition and keep them in it. 

They know that they are in slavery and condemned to 
privation and darkness to minister to the lusts of the 
minority who keep them down. They know it, and they 
say so plainly. And this knowledge increases their suffer- 
ings and constitutes its bitterest sting. 

The slave of antiquity knew that he was a slave by nature, 
but our laborer, while he feels he is a slave, knows that he 
ought not to be, and so he tastes the agony of Tantalus, 
forever desiring and never gaining what might and ought 
to be his. 

The sufferings of the working classes, springing from the 
contradiction between what is and what ought to be, are 
increased tenfold by the envy and hatred engendered by 
their consciousness of it. 

The laborer of the present day would not cease to suffer 
even if his toil were much lighter than that of the slave of 
ancient times, even if he gained an eight-hour working 
day and a wage of three dollars a day. For he is working 
at the manufacture of things which he will not enjoy, 
working not by his own will for his own benefit, but through 
necessity, to satisfy the desires of luxurious and idle people 
in general, and for the profit of a single rich man, the 
owner of a factory or workshop in particular. And he 
knows that all this is going on in a world in which it is a 
recognized scientific principle that labor alone creates 
wealth, and that to profit by the labor of others is immoral, 
dishonest, and punishable by law ; in a world, moreover, 
which professes to believe Christ's doctrine that we are all 
brothers, and that true merit and dignity is to be found in 
serving one's neighbor, not in exploiting him. All this he 
knows, and he cannot but suffer keenly from the sharp 
contrast between what is and what ought to be. 



Ii8 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

"According to all principles, according to all I know, 
and what everyone professes," the workman says to himself. 
" I ought to be free, equal to everyone else, and loved ; 
and I am — a slave, humiliated and hated/' And he too is 
filled with hatred and tries to find means to escape from 
his position, to shake off the enemy who is over-riding him, 
and to oppress him in turn. People say, *' Workmen have 
no business to try to become capitalists, the poor to try to 
put themselves in the place of the rich." That is a mis- 
take. The workingmen and the poor would be wrong if 
they tried to do so in a world in which slaves and masters 
were regarded as different species created by God ; but 
they are living in a world which professes the faith of the 
Gospel, that all are alike sons of God, and so brothers and 
equal. And however men may try to conceal it, one of 
the first conditions of Christian life is love, not in words 
but in deeds. 

The man of the so-called educated classes lives in still 
more glaring inconsistency and suffering. Every educated 
man, if he believes in anything, believes in the brotherhood 
of all men, or at least he has a sentiment of humanity, or 
else of justice, or else he believes in science. And all the 
while he knows that his whole life is framed on principles 
in direct opposition to it all, to all the principles of Christi- 
anity, humanity, justice, and science. 

He knows that all the habits in which he has been brought 
up, and which he could not give up without suffering, can 
only be satisfied through the exhausting, often fatal, toil of 
oppressed laborers, that is, through the most obvious and 
brutal violation of the principles of Christianity, humanity, 
and justice, and even of science (that is, economic science). 
He advocates the principles of fraternity, humanity, justice, 
and science, and yet he lives so that he is dependent on the 
oppression of the working classes, which he denounces, and 
his whole life is based on the advantages gained by their 



IS WITHIN Your - 119 

oppression. Moreover he is directing every effort to main- 
taining this state of things so flatly opposed to all his beliefs. 

We are all brothers — and yet every morning a brother or 
a sister must empty the bedroom slops for me. We are all 
brothers, but every morning I must have a cigar, a sweet- 
meat, an ice, and such things, which my brothers and sisters 
have been wasting their health in manufacturing, and I en- 
joy these things and demand them. We are all brothers, 
yet I live by working in a bank, or mercantile house, or shop 
at making all goods dearer for my brothers. We are all 
brothers, but I live on a salary paid me for prosecuting, 
judging, and condemning the thief or the prostitute whose 
existence the whole tenor of my life tends to bring about, 
and who I know ought not to be punished but reformed. 
We are all brothers, but I live on the salary I gain by col- 
lecting taxes from needy laborers to be spent on the luxur- 
ies of the rich and idle. We are all brothers, but I take a 
stipend for preaching a false Christian religion, which I do 
not myself believe in, and which only serves to hinder men 
from understanding true Christianity. I take a stipend as 
priest or bishop for deceiving men in the matter of the 
greatest importance to them. We are all brothers, but I 
will not give the poor the benefit of my educational, medical, 
or literary labors except for money. We are all brothers, 
yet I take a salary for being ready to commit murder, for 
teaching men to murder, or making firearms, gunpowder, 
or fortifications. 

The whole life of the upper classes is a constant incon- 
sistency. The more delicate a man's conscience is, the 
more painful this contradiction is to him. 

A man of sensitive conscience cannot but suffer if he lives 
such a life. The only means by which he can escape from 
this suffering is by blunting his conscience, but even if some 
men succeed in dulling their conscience they cannot dull 
their fears. 



I20 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

The men of the higher dominating classes whose con- 
science is naturally not sensitive or has become blunted, if 
they don't suffer through conscience, suffer from fear and 
hatred. They are bound to suffer. They know all the 
hatred of them existing, and inevitably existing in the work- 
ing classes. They are aware that the working classes 
know that they are deceived and exploited, and that they 
are beginning to organize themselves to shake off oppres- 
sion and revenge themselves on their oppressors. The 
higher classes see the unions, the strikes, the May Day 
Celebrations, and feel the calamity that is threatening them, 
and their terror passes into an instinct of self-defense and 
hatred. They know that if for one instant they are worsted 
in the struggle with their oppressed slaves, they will perish, 
because the slaves are exasperated and their exasperation 
is growing more intense with every day of oppression. The 
oppressors, even if they wished to do so, could not make an 
end to oppression. They know that they themselves will 
perish directly they even relax the harshness of their 
oppression. And they do not relax it, in spite of all their 
pretended care for the welfare of the working classes, for 
the eight-hour day, for regulation of the labor of minors 
and of women, for savings banks and pensions. All that is 
humbug, or else simply anxiety to keep the slave fit to do 
his work. But the slave is still a slave, and the master who 
cannot live without a slave is less disposed to set him free 
than ever. 

The attitude of the ruling classes to the laborers is that 
of a man who has felled his adversary to the earth and 
holds him down, not so much because he wants to hold him 
' down, as because he knows that if he let him go, even 
for a second, he would himself be stabbed, for his adver- 
sary is infuriated and has a knife in his hand. And there- 
fore, whether their conscience is tender or the reverse, our 
rich men cannot enjoy the wealth tJiey have filched from 



IS WITHIN Your 121 

the poor as the ancients did who believed in their right to 
it. Their whole life and all their enjoyments are embittered 
either by the stings of conscience or by terror. 

So much for the economic contradiction. The political 
contradiction is even more striking. 

All men are brought up to the habit of obeying the laws 
of the state before everything. The whole existence of 
modern times is defined by laws. A man marries and 
is divorced, educates his children, and even (in many 
countries) professes his religious faith in accordance with 
the law. What about the law then which defines our whole 
existence ? Do men believe in it ? Do they regard it as 
good ? Not at all. In the majority of cases people of the 
present time do not believe in the justice of the law, they 
despise it, but still they obey it. It was very well for the 
men of the ancient world to observe their laws. They 
firmly believed that their law (it was generally of a religious 
character) was the only just law, which everyone ought to 
obey. But is it so with us ? we know and cannot help 
knowing that the law of our country is not the one eternal 
law ; that it is only one of the many laws of different 
countries, which are equally imperfect, often obviously 
wrong and unjust, and are criticised from every point of 
view in the newspapers. The Jew might well obey his 
laws, since he had not the slightest doubt that God had 
written them with his finger ; the Roman too might well 
obey the laws which he thought had been dictated by the 
nymph Egeria. Men might well observe the laws if they 
believed the Tzars who made them were God's anointed, 
or even if they thought they were the work of assemblies of 
lawgivers who had the power and the desire to make them 
as good as possible. But we all know how our laws are 
made. We have all been behind the scenes, v/e know that 
they are the product of covetousness, trickery, and party 
struggles ; that there is not and cannot be any real justice 



122 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

in them. And so modern men cannot believe that obedi- 
ence to civic or political laws can satisfy the demands of 
the reason or of human nature. Men have long ago recog- 
nized that it is irrational to obey a law the justice of which 
is very doubtful, and so they cannot but suffer in obeying 
a law which they do not accept as judicious and binding. 

A man cannot but suffer when his whole life is defined 
beforehand for him by laws, which he must obey under 
threat of punishment, though he does not believe in their 
wisdom or justice, and often clearly perceives their injustice, 
cruelty, and artificiality. 

We recognize the uselessness of customs and import 
duties, and are obliged to pay them. We recognize the 
uselessness of the expenditure on the maintenance of the 
Court and other members of Government, and we regard 
the teaching of the Church as injurious, but we are obliged 
to bear our share of the expenses of these institutions. 
We regard the punishments inflicted by law as cruel and 
shameless, but we must assist in supporting them. We 
regard as unjust and pernicious the distribution of landed 
property, but we are obliged to submit to it. We see no 
necessity for wars and armies, but we must bear terribly 
heavy burdens in support of troops and war expenses. 

But this contradiction is nothing in comparison with the 
contradiction which confronts us when we turn to interna- 
tional questions, and which demands a solution under pain 
of the loss of the sanity and even the existence of the 
human race. That is the contradiction between the Chris- 
tian conscience and war. 

We are all Christian nations living the same spiritual 
life, so that every noble and pregnant thought, springing up 
at one end of the world, is at once communicated to the 
whole of Christian humanity and evokes everywhere the 
same emotion of pride and rejoicing without distinction of 
nationalities. We who love thinkers, philanthropists, poets, 



IS WITHIN Your 123 

and scientific men of foreign origin, and are as proud of 
the exploits of Father Damien as if he were one of our- 
selves, we, who have a simple love for men of foreign 
nationalities, Frenchmen, Germans, Americans, and Eng- 
lishmen, who respect their qualities, are glad to meet 
them and make them so warmly welcome, cannot regard 
war with them as anything heroic. We cannot even 
imagine without horror the possibility of a disagreement 
between these people and ourselves which would call for 
reciprocal murder. Yet we are all bound to take a hand in 
this slaughter which is bound to come to pass to-morrow — 
if not to-day. 

It was very well for the Jew, the Greek, and the Roman 
to defend the independence of his nation by murder. For 
he piously believed that his people was the only true, fine, 
and good people dear to God, and all the rest were Philis- 
tines, barbarians. Men of mediaeval times — even up to the 
end of the last and beginning of this century — might con- 
tinue to hold this belief. But however much we work upon 
ourselves we cannot believe it; And this contradiction for 
men of the present day has become so full of horror that 
without its solution life is no longer possible. 

"We live in a time which is full of inconsistencies," 
writes Count Komarovsky, the professor of international 
law, in his learned treatise. " The press of all countries is 
continually expressing the universal desire for peace, and 
the general sense of its necessity for all nations. 

" Representatives of governments, private persons, and 
official organs say the same thing ; it is repeated in parlia- 
mentary debates, diplomatic correspondence, and even in 
state treaties. At the same time governments are increas- 
ing the strength of their armies every year, levying fresh 
taxes, raising loans, and leaving as a bequest to future 
generations the duty of repairing the blunders of the 
senseless policy of the present. What a striking contrast 



// 



124 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

between words and deeds ! Of course governments will 
plead in justification of these measures that all their ex- 
penditure and armament are exclusively for purposes of 
defense. But it remains a mystery to every disinterested 
man whence they can expect attacks if all the great powers 
are single-hearted in their policy, in pursuing nothing 
but self-defense. In reality it looks as if each of the great 
powers were every instant anticipating an attack on the 
part of the others. And this results in a general feeling of 
insecurity and superhuman efforts on the part of each 
government to increase their forces beyond those of the 
other powers. Such a competition of itself increases the 
danger of war. Nations cannot endure the constant in- 
crease of armies for long, and sooner or later they will 
prefer war to all the disadvantages of their present posi- 
tion and the constant menace of war. Then the most 
Jrifling pretext will be sufficient to throw the whole of 
Europe into the fire of universal war. And it is a mis- 
taken idea that such a crisis might deliver us from the 
political and economical troubles that are crushing us. 
The experience of the wars of latter years teaches us that 
every war has only intensified national hatreds, made mili- 
tary burdens more crushing and insupportable, and ren- 
dered the political and economical position of Europe more 
grievous and insoluble." 

** Modern Europe keeps under arms an active army of 
nine millions of men," writes Enrico Ferri, ** besides fifteen 
millions of reserve, with an outlay of four hundred millions 
of francs per annum. By continual increase of the armed 
force, the sources of social and individual prosperity are 
paralyzed, and the state of the modern world may be com- 
pared to that of a man who condemns himself to wasting 
from lack of nutrition in order to provide himself with 
arms, losing thereby the strength to use the arms he pro- 
vides, under the weight of which he will at last succumb.*' 



IS WITHIN Your 125 

Charles Booth, in his paper read in London before the 
Association for the Reform and Codification of the Law 
of Nations, June 26, 1887, says the same thing. After 
referring to the same number, nine millions of the active 
army and fifteen millions of reserve, and the enormous 
expenditure of governments on the support and arming of 
these forces, he says : ** These figures represent only a 
small part of the real cost, because besides the recognized 
expenditure of the war budget of the various nations, we 
ought also to take into account the enormous loss to society 
involved in withdrawing from it such an immense number 
of its most vigorous men, who are taken from industrial 
pursuits and every kind of labor, as well as the enormous 
interest on the sums expended on military preparations 
without any return. The inevitable result of this ex- 
penditure on war and preparations for war is a contin- 
ually growing national debt. The greater number of 
loans raised by the governments of Europe were with 
a view to war. Their total sum amounts to four hundred 
millions sterling, and these debts are increasing every 
year." 

The same Professor Komarovsky says in another place : 
^' We live in troubled times. Everywhere we hear com- 
plaints of the depression of trade and manufactures, and 
the wretchedness of the economic position generally, the 
miserable conditions of existence of the working classes, 
and the universal impoverishment of the masses. But in 
spite of this, governments in their efforts to maintain their 
independence rush to the greatest extremes of senseless- 
ness. New taxes and duties are being devised everywhere, 
and the financial oppression of the nations knows no limits. 
If we glance at the budgets of the states of Europe for the 
last hundred years, what striked us most of all is their rapid 
and continually growing increase. 

*^ How can we explain this extraordinary phenomenon, 



I) 



V 



126 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

which sooner or later threatens us all with inevitable bank- 
ruptcy ? 

** It is caused beyond dispute by the expenditure for the 
maintenance of armaments which swallows up a third and 
even a half of all the expenditure of European states. 
And the most melancholy thing is that one can foresee no 
limit to this augmentation of the budget and impoverish- 
ment of the masses. What is socialism but a protest against i 
this abnormal position in which the greater proportion of I 
the population of our world is placed?" ' 

*' We are ruining ourselves," says Frederick Passy in a 
letter read before the last Congress of Universal Peace (in 
1890) in London, *' we are ruining ourselves in order to be 
able to take part in the senseless wars of the future or to 
pay the interest on debts we have incurred by the sense- 
less and criminal wars of the past. We are dying of ■ 
hunger so as to secure the means of killing each other." / / 

Speaking later on of the way the subject is looked at ih 
France, he says : '' We believe that, a hundred years after the 
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the citizen, the 
time has come to recognize the rights of nations and to 
renounce at once and forever all those undertakings based 
on fraud and force, which, under the name of conquests, 
are veritable crimes against humanity, and which, whatever 
the vanity of monarchs and the pride of nations may think 
of them, only weaken even those who are triumphant over 
them." 

** I am surprised at the way religion is carried on in this 
country," said Sir Wilfrid Lawson at the same congress. 
"You send a boy to Sunday school, and you tell him: 
* Dear boy, you must love your enemies. If another boy 
strikes you, you mustn't hit him back, but try to reform 
him by loving him.' Well. The boy stays in the Sunday 
school till he is fourteen or fifteen, and then his friends 
send him into the army. What has he to do in the army ? 



IS WITHIN Your 127 

He certainly won't love his enemy ; quite the contrary, if he 
can only get at him, he will run him through with his bay- 
onet. That is the nature of all religious teaching in this 
country. I do not think that that is a very good way of 
carrying out the precepts of religion. I think if it is a 
good thing for a boy to love his enemy, it is good for a 
grown-up man.'* 

** There are in Europe twenty-eight millions of men 
under arms," says Wilson, *^to decide disputes, not by 
discussion, but by murdering one another. That is the 
accepted method for deciding disputes among Christian 
nations. This method is, at the same time, very expensive, 
for, according to the statistics I have read, the nations of 
Europe spent in the year 1872 a hundred and fifty millions 
sterling on preparations for deciding disputes by means of 
murder. It seems to me, therefore, that in such a state of 
things one of two alternatives must be admitted : either 
Christianity is a failure, or those who have undertaken to 
expound it have failed in doing so. Until our warriors are 
disarmed and our armies disbanded, we have not the right 
to call ourselves a Christian nation." 

In a conference on the subject of the duty of Christian 
ministers to preach against war, G. D. Bartlett said among 
other things : " If I understand the Scriptures, I say that 
men are only playing with Christianity so long as they 
ignore the question of war. I have lived a longish life 
and have heard our ministers preach on universal peace 
hardly half a dozen times. Twenty years ago, in a drawing 
room, I dared in the presence of forty persons to moot the 
proposition that war was incompatible with Christianity ; I 
was regarded as an arrant fanatic. The idea that we could 
get on without war was regarded as unmitigated weakness 
and folly.'* 

The Catholic priest Defourney has expressed himself in 
the same spirit. " One of the first precepts of the eternal 



128 **• THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

law inscribed in the consciences of all men/' says the Abb^ 
Defourney, ** is the prohibition of taking the life or shed- 
ding the blood of a fellow-creature without sufficient 
cause, without being forced into the necessity of it. This 
is one of the commandments which is most deeply stamped 
in the heart of man. But so soon as it is a question of 
war, that is, of shedding blood in torrents, men of the 
present day do not trouble themselves about a sufficient 
cause. Those who take part in wars do not even think of 
asking themselves whether there is any justification for 
these innumerable murders, whether they are justifiable or 
unjustifiable, lawful or unlawful, innocent or criminal ; 
whether they are breaking that fundamental commandment 
that forbids killing without lawful cause. But their con- 
science is mute. War has ceased to be something depend- 
ent on moral considerations. In warfare men have in all 
the toil and dangers they endure no other pleasure than 
i|that of being conquerors, no sorrow other than that of 
I being conquered. Don't tell me that they are serving 
their country. A great genius answered that long ago in 
the words that have become a proverb: * Without justice, 
what is an empire but a great band of brigands ? ' And is 
not every band of brigands a little empire? They too 
have their laws ; and they too make war to gain booty, and 
even for honor. 

" The aim of the proposed institution [the institution of 
an international board of arbitration] is that the nations 
of Europe may cease to be nations of robbers, and their 
armies, bands of brigands. And one must add, not only 
brigands, but slaves. For our armies are simply gangs of 
slaves at the disposal of one or two commanders or min- 
isters, who exercise a despotic control over them without 
any real responsibility, as we very well know. 

*' The peculiarity of a slave is that he is a mere tool in 
,, the hands of his master, a thing, not a man. That is just 



IS WITHTiV VOUr 129 

v/hat soldiers, officers, and generals are, going to murder 
and be murdered at the will of a ruler or rulers. Military 
slavery is an actual fact, and it is the worst form of slavery, 
especially now when by means of compulsory service it lays 
its fetters on the necks of all the strong and capable men 
of a nation, to make them instruments of murder, butchers 
of human flesh, for that is all they are taken and trained 
to do. 

" The rulers, two or three in number, meet together in 
cabinets, secretly deliberate without registers, without pub- 
licity, and consequently without responsibility, and send 
men to be murdered.'* 

" Protests against armaments, burdensome to the people, 
have not originated in our times," says Signor E. G. Moneta. 
*' Hear what Montesquieu wrote in his day. ' France [and 
one might say, Europe] will be ruined by soldiers. A new 
plague is spreading throughout Europe. It attacks sov- 
ereigns and forces them to maintain an incredible number 
of armed men. This plague is infectious and spreads, 
because directly one government increases its armament, all 
the others do likewise. So that nothing is gained by it but 
general ruin. 

" * Every government maintains as great an army as it 
possibly could maintain if its people were threatened with 
extermination, and people call peace this state of tension 
of all against all. And therefore Europe is so ruined that 
if private persons were in the position of the governments 
of our continent, the richest of them would not have 
enough to live on. We are poor though we have the wealth 
and trade of the whole world.' 

"That was written almost 150 years ago. The picture 
seems drawn from the world of to-day. One thing only 
has changed — the form of government. In Montesquieu's 
time it was said that the cause of the maintenance of 
great armaments was the despotic power of kings, who 



I30 '• THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

made war in the hope of augmenting by conquest their 
personal revenues and gaining glory. People used to say 
then : * Ah, if only people could elect those who would 
have the right to refuse governments the soldiers and the 
money — then there would be an end to military politics.' 
Now there are representative governments in almost the 
whole of Europe, and in spite of that, war expenditures 
and the preparations for war have increased to alarming 
proportions. 

'^ It is evident that the insanity of sovereigns has gained 
possession of the ruling classes. War is not made now be- 
cause one king has been wanting in civility to the mistress 
of another king, as it was in Louis XIV. 's time. But the 
natural and honorable sentiments of national honor and 
patriotism are so exaggerated, and the public opinion of 
one nation so excited against another, that it is enough for 
a statement to be made (even though it may be a false 
report) that the ambassador of one state was not received 
by the principal personage of another state to cause the 
outbreak of the most awful and destructive war there has 
ever been seen. Europe keeps more soldiers under arms 
to-day than in the time of the great Napoleonic wars. All 
citizens with few exceptions are forced to spend some years 
in barracks. Fortresses, arsenals, and ships are built, new 
weapons are constantly being invented, to be replaced in a 
short time by fresh ones, for, sad to say, science, which 
ought always to be aiming at the good of humanity, assists 
in the work of destruction, and is constantly inventing new 
means for killing the greatest number of men in the shortest 
time. And to maintain so great a multitude of soldiers and 
to make such vast preparations for murder, hundreds of 
millions are spent annually, sums which would be sufficient 
for the education of the people and for immense works of 
public utility, and which would make it possible to find a 
peaceful solution of the social question. 



IS WITHIN you:: 131 

" Europe, then, is, in this respect, in spite of all the con- 
quests of science, in the same position as in the darkest 
and most barbarous days of the Middle Ages. All deplore 
this state of things — neither peace nor war — and all would 
be glad to escape from it. The heads of governments all 
declare that they all wish for peace, and vie with one 
another in the most solemn protestations of peaceful inten- 
tions. But the same day or the next they will lay a scheme 
for the increase of the armament before their legislative 
assembly, saying that these are the preventive measures 
they take for the very purpose of securing peace. 

" But this is not the kind of peace we want. And the 
nations are not deceived by it. True peace is based on 
mutual confidence, while these huge armaments show open 
and utter lack of confidence, if not concealed hostility, 
between states. What should we say of a man who, want- 
ing to show his friendly feelings for his neighbor, should 
invite him to discuss their differences with a loaded revolver 
in his hand ? 

" It is just this flagrant contradiction between the peace- 
ful professions and the warlike policy of governments 
which all good citizens desire to put an end to, at any 
cost.'* 

People are astonished that every year there are sixty 
thousand cases of suicide in Europe, and those only the 
recognized and recorded cases — and excluding Russia and 
Turkey ; but one ought rather to be surprised that there t 
are so few. Every man of the present day, if we go deep | 
enough into the contradiction between his conscience and / 
his life, is in a state of despair. 

Not to speak of all the other contradictions between 
modern life and the conscience, the permanently armed 
condition of Europe together with its profession of Chris- 
tianity is alone enough to drive any man to despair, to doubt 
^ of the sanity of mankind, and to terminate an existence in 



132 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

this senseless and brutal world. This contradiction, which / 
is a quintessence of all the other contradictions, is so ter- 
rible that to live and to take part in it is only possible if 
one does not think of it — if one is able to forget it. 

What ! all of us, Christians, not only profess to love one 
another, but do actually live one common life ; we whose 
social existence beats with one common pulse — we aid one 
another, learn from one another, draw ever closer to one 
another to our mutual happiness, and find in this closeness 
the whole meaning of life ! — and to-morrow some crazy 
ruler will say some stupidity, and another will answer in 
the same spirit, and then I must go expose myself to being 
murdered, and murder men — who have done me no harm — 
and more than that, whom I love. And this is not a remote 
contingency, but the very thing we are all preparing for, 
which is not only probable, but an inevitable certainty. 

To recognize this clearly is enough to drive a man out 
of his senses or to make him shoot himself. And this is 
just what does happen, and especially often among military 
men. A man need only come to himself for an instant to 
be impelled inevitably to such an end. 

And this is the only explanation of the dreadful inten- 
sity with which men of modern times strive to stupefy 
themselves, with spirits, tobacco, opium, cards, reading 
newspapers, traveling, and all kinds of spectacles and 
amusements. These pursuits are followed up as an impor- 
tant, serious business. And indeed they are a serious 
business. If there were no external means of dulling their 
I sensibilities, half of mankind would shoot themselves with- 
'out delay, for to live in opposition to one's reason is the 
most intolerable condition. And that is the condition of 
all men of the present day. All men of the modern world 
exist in a state of continual and flagrant antagonism 
between their conscience and their way of life. This 
antagonism is apparent in economic as well as polit- 



IS WITHIN Your 133 

ical life. But most striking of all is the contradiction 
between the Christian law of the brotherhood of men 
existing in the conscience and the necessity under which 
all men are placed by compulsory military service of being 
prepared for hatred and murder — of being at the same 
time a Christian and a gladiator. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ATTITUDE OF MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY TO WAR. 

People do not Try to Remove the Contradiction between Life and Con- 
science by a Change of Life, but their Cultivated Leaders Exert Every 
Effort to Obscure the Demands of Conscience, and Justify their Life ; 
in this Way they Degrade Society below Paganism to a State of Prime- 
val Barbarism — Undefined Attitude of Modern Leaders of Thought to 
War, to Universal Militarism, and to Compulsory Service in Army — 
One Section Regards War as an Accidental Political Phenomenon, to 
be Avoided by External Measures only — Peace Congress — The Article 
in the Revue des Revues — Proposition of Maxime du Camp — 
Value of Boards of Arbitration and Suppression of Armies — Attitude 
of Governments to Men of this Opinion and What they Do — Another 
Section Regards War as Cruel, but Inevitable — Maupassant — Rod — A 
Third Section Regard War as Necessary, and not without its Advantages 
— Doucet — Claretie — Zola — ^Vogue. 

The antagonism between life and the conscience may 
be removed in two ways : by a change of life or by a change 
of conscience. And there would seem there can be no 
doubt as to these alternatives. 

A man may cease to do what he regards as wrong, but he 
cannot cease to consider wrong what is wrong. Just in the 
same way all humanity may cease to do what it regards as 
wrong, but far from being able to change, it cannot even 
retard for a time the continual growth of a clearer recogni- 
tion of what is wrong and therefore ought not to be. And 



134 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

therefore it would seem inevitable for Christian men to 
abandon the pagan forms of society which they condemn, 
and to reconstruct their social existence on the Christian 
principles they profess. 

So it would be were it not for the law of inertia, as immu- 
table a force in men and nations as in inanimate bodies. 
In men it takes the form of the psychological principle, so 
truly expressed in the words of the Gospel, **They have 
loved darkness better than light because their deeds were 
evil." This principle shiows itself in men not trying to 
recognize the truth, but to persuade themselves that the life 
they are leading, which is what they like and are used to, 
is a life perfectly consistent with truth. 

Slavery was opposed to all the moral principles advocated 
by Plato and Aristotle, yet neither of them saw that, 
because to renounce slavery would have meant the break 
up of the life they were living. We see the same thing in 
our modern world. 

The division of men into two castes, as well as the use of 
force in government and war, are opposed to every moral 
principle professed by our modern society. Yet the culti- 
vated and advanced men of the day seem not to see it. 

The majority, if not all, of the cultivated men of our day 
try unconsciously to maintain the old social conception of 
life, which justifies their position, and to hide from them- 
selves and others its insufficiency, and above all the necessity 
of adopting the Christian conception of life, which will mean 
the break up of the whole existing social order. They 
struggle to keep up the organization based on the social 
conception of' life, but do not believe in it themselves, 
because it is extinct and it is impossible to believe in it. 

All modern literature — philosophical, political, and artis- 
tic — is striking in this respect. What wealth of idea, of 
form, of color, what erudition, what art, but what a lack of 
serious matter, what dread of any exactitude of thought or 



IS WITHIN Your 135 

expression ! Subtleties, allegories, humorous fancies, the 
widest generalizations, but nothing simple and clear, noth- 
ing going straight to the point, that is, to the problem of life. 

But that is not all; besides these graceful frivolities, our 
literature is full of simple nastiness and brutality, of argu- 
ments which would lead men back in the most refined way 
to primeval barbarism, to the principles not only of the 
pagan, but even of the animal life, which we have left be- 
hind us five thousand years ago. 

And it could not be otherwise. In their dread of the 
Christian conception of life which will destroy the social 
order, which some cling to only from habit, others also from 
interest, men cannot but be thrown back upon the pagan 
conception of life and the principles based on it. Nowa- 
days we see advocated not only patriotism and aristocratic 
principles just as they were advocated two thousand years 
ago, but even the coarsest epicureanism and animalism, only 
with this difference, that the men who then professed those 
views believed in them, while nowadays even the advocates 
of such views do not believe in them, for they have no mean- 
ing for the present day. No one can stand still when the 
earth is shaking under his feet. If we do not go forward 
we must go back. And strange and terrible to say, the 
cultivated men of our day, the leaders of thought, are in 
reality with their subtle reasoning drawing society back, not 
to paganism even, but to a state of primitive barbarism. 

This tendency on the part of the leading thinkers of the 
day is nowhere more apparent than in their attitude to the 
phenomenon in which all the insufficiency of the social con- 
ception of life is presented in the most concentrated form — 
in their attitude, that is, to war, to the general arming of 
nations, and to universal compulsory service. 

The undefined, if not disingenuous, attitude of modern 
thinkers to this phenomenon is striking. It takes three 
forms in cultivated society. One section look at it as an 



136 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

incidental phenomenon, arising out of the special political 
situation of Europe, and consider that this state of things 
can be reformed without a revolution in the whole internal 
social order of nations, by external measures of international 
diplomacy. Another section regard it as something cruel 
and hideous, but at the same time fated and inevitable, like 
disease and death. A third party with cool indifference 
consider war as an inevitable phenomenon, beneficial in its 
effects and therefore desirable. 

Men look at the subject from different points of view, but 
all alike talk of war as though it were something absolutely 
independent of the will of those who take part in it. And 
consequently they do not even admit the natural question 
which presents itself to every simple man: **How about 
me — ought I to take any part in it?'* In their view no 
question of this kind even exists, and every man, however 
he may regard war from a personal standpoint, must slavishly 
submit to the requirements of the authorities on the subject. 

The attitude of the first section of thinkers, those who see 
a way out of war in international diplomatic measures, is well 
expressed in the report of the last Peace Congress in Lon- 
don, and the articles and letters upon war that appeared in 
No. 8 of the Revue des Revues^ 1891. The congress after 
gathering together from various quarters the verbal and 
written opinion of learned men opened the proceedings by 
a religious service, and after listening to addresses for five 
whole days, concluded them by a public dinner and 
speeches. They adopted the following resolutions: 

**i. The congress afifirms its belief that the brotherhood 
of man involves as a necessary consequence a brotherhood 
of nations. 

**2. The congress recognizes the important influence that 
Christianity exercises on the moral and political progress of 
mankind, and earnestly urges upon ministers of the Gospel 
and other religious teachers the duty of setting forth the 



IS WITHIN YOU." 137 

principles of peace and good will toward men. And it 
recom?nends that the third Sunday in December be set apart for 
that purpose, 

**3. The congress expresses the opinion that all teachers 
of history should call the attention of the young to the grave 
evils inflicted on mankind in all ages by war, and to the fact 
that such war has been waged for most inadequate causes. 

**4. The congress protests against the use of military 
drill in schools by way of physical exercise, and suggests 
the formation of brigades for saving life rather than of a 
quasi-military character; and urges the desirability of 
impressing on the Board of Examiners who formulate the 
questions for examination the propriety of guiding the 
minds of children in the principles of peace. 

*'5. The congress holds that the doctrine of the Rights 
of Man requires that the aboriginal and weaker races, their 
territories and liberties, shall be guarded from injustice and 
fraud, and that these races shall be shielded against the 
vices so prevalent among the so-called advanced races of 
men. It further expresses its conviction that there should 
be concert of action among the nations for the accomplish- 
ment of these ends. The congress expresses its hearty 
appreciation of the resolutions of the Anti-slavery Confer- 
ence held recently at Brussels for the amelioration of the 
condition of the peoples of Africa. 

**6. The congress believes that the warlike prejudices 
and traditions which are still fostered in the various nation- 
alities, and the misrepresentations by leaders of public 
opinion in legislative assemblies or through the press, are 
often indirect causes of war, and that these evils should be 
counteracted by the publication of accurate information 
tending to the removal of misunderstanding between nations, 
and recommends the importance of considering the question 
of commencing an international newspaper with such a 
purpose. 



133 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

*'7. The congress proposes to the Inter-parliamentary 
Conference that the utmost support should be given to every 
project for unification of weights and measures, coinage, 
tariff, postage, and telegraphic arrangements, etc., which 
would assist in constituting a commercial, industrial, and 
scientific union of the peoples. 

**8. The congress, in view of the vast social and moral 
influence of woman, urges upon every woman to sustain the 
things that make for peace, as otherwise she incurs grave 
responsibility for the continuance of the systems of mili- 
tarism. 

*'9 The congress expresses the hope that the Financial 
Reform Association and other similar societies in Europe 
and America should unite in considering means for estab- 
lishing equitable commercial relations between states, by 
the reduction of import duties. The congress feels that it 
can affirm that the whole of Europe desires peace, and 
awaits with impatience the suppression of armaments, which, 
under the plea of defense, become in their turn a danger by 
keeping alive mutual distrust, and are, at the same time, 
the cause of that general economic disturbance which 
stands in the way of settling in a satisfactory manner the 
problems of labor and poverty, which ought to take prece- 
dence of all others. 

*'io. The congress, recognizing that a general disarma- 
ment would be the best guarantee of peace and would lead 
to the solution of the questions which now most divide 
states, expresses the wish that a congress of representatives 
of all the states of Europe may be assembled as soon as 
possible to consider the means of effecting a gradual general 
disarmament. 

**ii. The congress, in consideration of the fact that the 
timidity of a single power might delay the convocation of 
the above-mentioned congress, is of opinion that the govern- 
ment which should first dismiss any considerable number of 



IS WITHIN Your 139 

soldiers would confer a signal benefit on Europe and man- 
kind, because it would, by public opinion, oblige other 
governments to follow its example, and by the moral force 
of this accomplished fact would have increased rather than 
diminished the conditions of its national defense. 

"12. The congress, considering the question of disarma- 
ment, as of peace in general, depends on public opinion, 
recommends the peace societies, as well as all friends of 
peace, to be active in its propaganda, especially at the time 
of parliamentary elections, in order that the electors should 
give their votes to candidates who are pledged to support 
Peace, Disarmament, and Arbitration. 

**i3. The congress congratulates the friends of peace on 
the resolution adopted by the International American Con- 
ference, held at Washington in April last, by which it was 
recommended that arbitration should be obligatory in all 
controversies, whatever their origin, except only those which 
may imperil the independence of one of the nations involved. 

"14. The congress recommends this resolution to the 
attention of European statesmen, and expresses the ardent 
desire that similar treaties may speedily be entered into be- 
tween the other nations of the world. 

''15. The congress expresses its satisfaction at the adop- 
tion by the Spanish Senate on June 16 last of a project of 
law authorizing the government to negotiate general or 
special treaties of arbitration for the settlement of all dis- 
putes except those relating to the independence or internal 
government of the states affected ; also at the adoption of 
resolutions to a like effect by the Norwegian Storthing and 
by the Italian Chamber. 

**i6. The congress resolves that a committee be ap- 
pointed to address communications to the principal political, 
religious, commercial, and labor and peace organizations, 
requesting them to send petitons to the governmental 
authorities praying that measures be taken for the formation 



14^ *• THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

of suitable tribunals for the adjudicature of international 
questions so as to avoid the resort to war. 

**i7. Seeing (i) that the object pursued by all peace 
societies is the establishment of judicial order between 
nations, and (2) that neutralization by international treaties 
constitutes a step toward this judicial state and lessens the 
number of districts in which war can be carried on, the 
congress recommends a larger extension of the rule of 
neutralization, and expresses the wish, (i) that all treaties 
which at present assure to certain states the benefit of 
neutrality remain in force, or if necessary be amended in a 
manner to render the neutrality more effective, either by 
extending neutralization to the whole of the state or by 
ordering the demolition of fortresses, which constitute 
rather a peril than a guarantee for neutrality; (2) that new 
treaties in harmony with the wishes of the populations con- 
cerned be concluded for establishing the neutralization of 
other states. 

**i8. The sub-committee proposes, (i) that the annual 
Peace Congress should be held either immediately before 
the meeting of the annual Sub-parliamentary Conference, or 
immediately after it in the same town ; (2) that the question 
of an international peace emblem be postponed sine die j 
(3) that the following resolutions be adopted: 

''a. To express satisfaction at the official overtures of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States addressed to the 
highest representatives of each church organization in 
Christendom to unite in a general conference to promote the 
substitution of international arbitration for war. 

*'b. To express in the name of the congress its profound 
reverence for the memory of Aurelio Saffi, the great Italian 
jurist, a member of the committee of the International 
League of Peace and Liberty. 

**(4) That the memorial adopted by this congress and 
signed by the president to the heads of the civilized states 



IS VVITHTN Your 141 

should, as far as practicable, be presented to each power by 
influential deputations. 

**(5) That the following resolutions be adopted: 

''a. A resolution of thanks to the presidents of the various 
sittings of the congress. 

"^. A resolution of thanks to the chairman, the secre- 
taries, and the members of the bureau of the congress. 

* V. A resolution of thanks to the conveners and members 
of the sectional committees. 

''d. A resolution of thanks to Rev. Canon Scott Holland, 
Rev. Dr. Reuen Thomas, and Rev. J. Morgan Gibbon for 
their pulpit addresses before the congress, and also to the 
authorities of St. Paul's Cathedral, the City Temple, and 
Stamford Hill Congregational Church for the use of those 
buildings for public services. 

*V. A letter of thanks to her Majesty for permission to 
visit Windror Castle. 

*y. And also a resolution of thanks to the Lord Mayor 
and Lady Mayoress, to Mr. Passmore Edwards, and other 
friends who have extended their hospitality to the members 
of the congress. 

**i9. The congress places on record a heartfelt expres- 
sion of gratitude to Almighty God for the remarkable har- 
mony and concord which have characterized the meetings of 
the assembly, in which so many men and w^omen of varied 
nations, creeds, tongues, and races have gathered in closest 
co-operation, and for the conclusion of the labors of the 
congress; and expresses its firm and unshaken belief in the 
ultimate triumph of the cause of peace and of the principles 
advocated at these meetings.** 

The fundamental idea of the congress is the necessity (i) 
of diffusing among all people by all means the conviction of 
the disadvantages of war and the great blessing of peace, 
and (2) of rousing governments to the sense of the superi- 
ority of international arbitration over war and of the conse- 



142 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

quent advisability and necessity of disarmament. To attain 
the first aim the congress has recourse to teachers of his- 
tory, to women, and to the clergy, with the advice to the 
latter to preach on the evil of war and the blessing of peace 
every third Sunday in December. To attain the second 
object the congress appeals to governments with the sug- 
gestion that they should disband their armies and replace 
war by arbitration. 

To preach to men of the evil of war and the blessing of 
peace! But the blessing of peace is so well known to men 
that, ever since there have been men at all, their best wash 
has been expressed in the greeting, ** Peace be with you.*' 
So why preach about it? 

Not only Christians, but pagans, thousands of years ago, 
all recognized the evil of war and the blessing of peace. So 
that the recommendation to ministers of the Gospel to 
preach on the evil of war and the blessing of peace every 
third Sunday in December is quite superfluous. 

The Christian cannot but preach on that subject every 
day of his life. If Christians and preachers of Christianity 
do not do so, there must be reasons for it. And until these 
have been removed no recommendations will be effective. 
Still less effective will be the recommendations to govern- 
ments to disband their armies and replace them by inter- 
national boards of arbitration. Governments, too, know 
very well the difficulty and the burdensomeness of raising 
and maintaining forces, and if in spite of that knowledge 
they do, at the cost of terrible strain and effort, raise and 
maintain forces, it is evident that they cannot do otherwise, 
and the recommendation of the congress can never change 
it. But the learned gentlemen are unwilling to see that, 
and keep hoping to find a political combination, through 
which governments shall be induced to limit their powers 
themselves. 

**Can we get rid of war' 7 asks a learned writer in the 



IS WITHIN Your 143 

Revue des Revues. **A11 are agreed that if it were to break 
out in Europe, its consequences would be like those of 
the great inroads of barbarians. The existence of whole 
nationalities would be at stake, and therefore the war 
would be desperate, bloody, atrocious. 

**This consideration, together with the terrible engines of 
destruction invented by modern science, retards the moment 
of declaring war, and maintains the present temporary situa- 
tion, which might continue for an indefinite period, except 
for the fearful cost of maintaining armaments which are 
exhausting the European states and threatening to reduce 
nations ^ to a state of misery hardly less than that of war 
itself. 

* 'Struck by this reflection, men of various countries have 
tried to find means for preventing, or at least for softening, 
the results of the terrible slaughter with which we are 
threatened. 

**Such are the questions brought forward by the Peace 
Congress shortly to be held in Rome, and the publication 
of a pamphlet, *Sur le Desarmement.* 

**It is unhappily beyond doubt that with the present 
organization of the majority of European states, isolated 
from one another and guided by distinct interests, the abso- 
lute suppression of war is an illusion with which it would 
be dangerous to cheat ourselves. Wiser rules and regula- 
tions imposed on these duels between nations might, how- 
ever, at least limit its horrors. 

* *It is equally chimerical to reckon on projects of disarma- 
ment, the execution of which is rendered almost impossible 
by considerations of a popular character present to the mind 
of all our readers. [This probably means that France can- 
not disband its army before taking its revenge.] Public 
opinion is not prepared to accept them, and moreover, the 
international relations between different peoples are not 
such as to make their acceptance possible. Disarmament 



144 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

imposed on one nation by another in circumstances threaten- 
ing its security would be equivalent to a declaration of war. 

**However, one may admit that an exchange of ideas be- 
tween the nations interested could aid, to a certain degree, 
in bringing about the good understanding indispensable to 
any negotiations, and would render possible a considerable 
reduction of the military expenditure which is crushing the 
nations of Europe and greatly hindering the solution of the 
social question, which each individually must solve on pain 
of having internal war as the price for escaping it externally. 

**We might at least demand the reduction of the enor- 
mous expenses of war organized as it is at present with a 
view to the power of invasion within twenty-four hours and 
a decisive battle within a week of the declaration of war. 

"We ought to manage so that states could not make the 
attack suddenly and invade each other's territories within 
twenty-four hours." 

This practical notion has been put forth by Maxime du 
Camp, and his article concludes with it. 

The propositions of M. du Camp are as follows: 

1. A diplomatic congress to be held every year. 

2. No war to be declared till two months after the inci- 
dent which provoked it. (The difficulty here would be to 
decide precisely what incident did provoke the war, since 
whenever war is declared there are very many such inci- 
dents, and one would have to decide from which to reckon 
the two months' interval.) 

3. No war to be declared before it has been submitted to 
a plebiscitum of the nations preparing to take part in it. 

4. No hostilities to be commenced till a month after the 
official declaration of war. 

**No war to be declared. No hostilities to be com- 
menced,'* etc. But who is to arrange that no war is to be 
declared? Who is to compel people to do this and that? 
Who is to force states to delay their operations for a certain 



IS WITHIN VOUr 145 

fixed time? All the other states. But all these others are 
also states which want holding in check and keeping within 
limits, and forcing, too. Who is to force them, and how? 
Public opinion. But if there is a public opinion which can 
force governments to delay their operations for a fixed 
period, the same public opinion can force governments not 
to declare war at all. 

But, it will be replied, there may be such a balance of 
power, such a ponderation de forces^ as would lead states to 
hold back of their own accord. Well, that has been tried 
and is being tried even now. The Holy Alliance was noth- 
ing but that, the League of Peace was another attempt at 
the same thing, and so on. 

But, it will be answered, suppose all were agreed. If all 
were agreed there would be no more war certainly, and no 
need for arbitration either. 

**A court of arbitration! Arbitration shall replace war. 
Questions shall be decided by a court of arbitration. The 
Alabama question was decided by a court of arbitration, 
and the question of the Caroline Islands was submitted to 
the decision of the Pope. Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, 
and Holland have all declared that they prefer arbitration 
to war." 

I dare say Monaco has expressed the same preference. 
The only unfortunate thing is that Germany, Russia, Aus- 
tria, and France have not so far shown the same inclination. 
It is amazing how men can deceive themselves when they 
find it necessary! Governments consent to decide their 
disagreements by arbitration and to disband their armies! 
The differences between Russia and Poland, between Eng- 
land and Ireland, between Austria and Bohemia, between 
Turkey and the Slavonic states, between France and Ger- 
many, to be soothed away by amiable conciliation ! 

One might as well suggest to merchants and bankers that 
they should sell nothing for a greater price than they gave 



146 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

for it, should undertake the distribution of wealth for no 
profit, and should abolish money, as it would thus be ren- 
dered unnecessary. 

But since commercial and banking operations consist in 
nothing but selling for more than the cost price, this would 
be equivalent to an invitation to suppress themselves. It 
is the same in regard to governments. To suggest to 
governments that they should not have recourse to violence, 
but should decide their misunderstandings in accordance 
with equity, is inviting them to abolish themselves as rulers, 
and that no government can ever consent to do. 

The learned men form societies (there are more than a 
hundred such societies), assemble in congresses (such as 
those recently held in London and Paris, and shortly to be 
held in Rome), deliver addresses, eat public dinners and 
make speeches, publish journals, and prove by every means 
possible that the nations forced to support millions of troops 
are strained to the furthest limits of their endurance, that 
the maintenance of these huge armed forces is in opposition 
to all the aims, the interests, and the wishes of the people, 
and that it is possible, moreover, by writing numerous 
papers, and uttering a great many words, to bring all men 
into agreement and to arrange so that they shall have no 
antagonistic interests, and then there will be no more war. 

When I was a little boy they told me if I wanted to catch 
a bird I must put salt on its tail. I ran after the birds with 
the salt in my hand, but I soon convinced myself that if I 
could put salt on a bird's tail, I could catch it, and realized 
that I had been hoaxed. 

People ought to realize the same fact when they read 
books and articles on arbitration and disarmament. 

If one could put salt on a bird's tail, it would be because 
it could not fly and there would be no difficulty in catching 
it. If the bird had wings and did not want to be caught, it 
would not let one put salt on its tail, because the specialty 



IS WITHIN Your 147 

of a bird is to fly. In precisely the same way the specialty 
of government is not to obey, but to enforce obedience. 
And a government is only a government so long as it can 
make itself obeyed, and therefore it always strives for that 
and will never willingly abandon its power. But since it is 
on the army that the power of government rests, it will never 
give up the army, and the use of the army in war. 

The error arises from the learned jurists deceiving them- 
selves and others, by asserting that government is not what 
it really is, one set of men banded together to oppress 
another set of men, but, as shown by science, is the repre- 
sentation of the citizens in their collective capacity. They 
have so long been persuading other people of this that at 
last they have persuaded themselves of it; and thus they 
often seriously suppose that government can be bound by 
considerations of justice. But history shows that from 
Caesar to Napoleon, and from Napoleon to Bismarck, 
government is in its essence always a force acting in viola- 
tion of justice, and that it cannot be otherwise. Justice can 
have no binding force on a ruler or rulers who keep men, 
deluded and drilled in readiness for acts of violence — sol- 
diers, and by means of them control others. And so govern- 
ments can never be brought to consent to diminish the 
number of these drilled slaves, who constitute their whole 
power and importance. 

Such is the attitude of certain learned men to the contra- 
diction under which our society is being crushed, and such 
are their methods of solving it. Tell these people that the 
whole matter rests on the personal attitude of each man to 
the moral and religious question put nowadays to everyone, 
the question, that is, whether it is lawful or unlawful for 
him to take his share of military service, and these learned 
gentlemen will shrug their shoulders and not condescend to 
listen or to answer you. The solution of the question in 
their idea is to be found in reading addresses, writing books, 



14^ *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

electing presidents, vice-presidents, and secretaries, and 
meeting and speaking first in one town and then in another. 
From all this speechifying and writing it will come to pass, 
according to their notions, that governments will cease to 
levy the soldiers, on whom their whole strength depends, 
will listen to their discourses, and will disband their forces, 
leaving themselves without any defense, not only against 
their neighbors, but also against their own subjects. As 
though a band of brigands, who have some unarmed travel- 
ers bound and ready to be plundered, should be so touched 
by their complaints of the pain caused by the cords they are 
fastened with as to let them go again. 

Still there are people who believe in this, busy themselves 
over peace congresses, read addresses, and write books. 
And governments, we may be quite sure, express their sym- 
pathy and make a show of encouraging them. In the same 
way they pretend to support temperance societies, while 
they are living principally on the drunkenness of the people; 
and pretend to encourage education, when their whole 
strength is based on ignorance; and to support constitu- 
tional freedom, when their strength rests on the absence of 
freedom; and to be anxious for the improvement of the 
condition of the working classes, when their very existence 
depends on their oppression; and to support Christianity, 
when Christianity destroys all government. 

To be able to do this they have long ago elaborated 
methods encouraging temperance, which cannot suppress 
drunkenness; methods of supporting education, which not 
only fail to prevent ignorance, but even increase it; 
methods of aiming at freedom and constitutionalism, which 
are no hindrance to despotism ; methods of protecting the 
working classes, which will not free them from slavery; and 
a Christianity, too, they have elaborated, which does not 
destroy, but supports governments. 

Now there is something more for the government to 



IS WITHIN Your 149 

encourage — peace. The sovereigns, who nowadays take 
counsel with their ministers, decide by their will alone 
whether the butchery of millions is to be begun this year or 
next. They know very well that all these discourses upon 
peace will not hinder them from sending millions of men to 
butchery when it seems good to them. They listen even 
with satisfaction to these discourses, encourage them, and 
take part in them. 

All this, far from being detrimental, is even of service to 
governments, by turning people's attention from the most 
important and pressing question: Ought or ought not each 
man called upon for military service to submit to serve in 
the army? 

*Teace will soon be arranged, thanks to alliances and 
congresses, to books and pamphlets; meantime go and put 
on your uniform, and prepare to cause suffering and to 
endure it for our benefit," is the government's line of argu- 
ment. And the learned gentlemen who get up congresses 
and write articles are in perfect agreement with it. 

This is the attitude of one set of thinkers. And since it 
is that most beneficial to governments, it is also the most 
encouraged by all intelligent governments. 

Another attitude to war has something tragical in it. 
There are men who maintain that the love for peace and the 
inevitability of war form a hideous contradiction, and that 
such is the fate of man. These are mostly gifted and sensi- 
tive men, who see and realize all the horror and imbecility 
and cruelty of war, but through some strange perversion of 
mind neither see nor seek to find any way out of this posi- 
tion, and seem to take pleasure in teasing the wound by 
dwelling on the desperate position of humanity. A notable 
example of such an attitude to war is to be found in the 
celebrated French writer Guy de Maupassant. Looking 
from his yacht at the drill and firing practice of the French 
soldiers the following reflections occur to him: 



15^ '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

*'When I think only of this word vrar, a kind of terror 
seizes upon me, as though I were listening to some tale of 
sorcery, of the Inquisition, some long past, remote abomi- 
nation, monstrous, unnatural. 

**When cannibalism is spoken of, we smile with pride, 
proclaiming our superiority to these savages. Which are 
the savages, the real savages? Those who fight to eat the 
conquered, or those who fight to kill, for nothing but to 
kill? 

**The young recruits, moving about in lines yonder, are 
destined to death like the flocks of sheep driven by the 
butcher along the road. They will fall in some plain with 
a saber cut in the head, or a bullet through the breast. And 
these are young men who might w^ork, be productive and 
useful. Their fathers are old and poor. Their mothers, 
w^ho have loved them for twenty years, worshiped them as 
none but mothers can, will learn in six months* time, or a 
year perhaps, that their son, their boy, the big boy reared 
with so much labor, so much expense, so much love, has 
been thrown in a hole like some dead dog, after being dis- 
emboweled by a bullet, and trampled, crushed, to a mass of 
pulp by the charges of cavalry. Why have they killed her 
boy, her handsome boy, her one hope, her pride, her life? 
She does not know. Ah, why? 

**War! fighting! slaughter! massacres of men! And 
we have now, in our century, with our civilization, with the 
spread of science, and the degree of philosophy which the 
genius of man is supposed to have attained, schools for 
training to kill, to kill very far off, to perfection, great num- 
bers at once, to kill poor devils of innocent men with fam- 
ilies and without any kind of trial. 

^' And what is 7110 st bewildering is that the people do not rise 
agaifist their gove?^n??ie?tts. For what difference is there be- 
tween monarchies and republics ? The 7nost bewildering thing 
is that the whole of society is not in revolt at the word war'' 



IS WITHIN you:' 151 

**Ah ! we shall always live under the burden of the ancient 
and odious customs, the criminal prejudices, the ferocious 
ideas of our barbarous ancestors, for we are beasts, and 
beasts we shall remain, dominated by instinct and changed 
by nothing. Would not any other man than Victor Hugo 
have been exiled for that mighty cry of deliverance and 
truth? * To-day force is called violence, and is being 
brought to judgment ; war has been put on its trial. At the 
plea of the human race, civilization arraigns warfare, and 
draws up the great list of crimes laid at the charge of con- 
querors and generals. The nations are coming to under- 
stand that the magnitude of a crime cannot be its extenua- 
tion; that if killing is a crime, killing many can be no 
extenuating circumstance; that if robbery is disgraceful, 
invasion cannot be glorious. Ah! let us proclaim these 
absolute truths; let us dishonor war!' 

*'Vain wrath,** continues Maupassant, **a poet's indigna- 
tion. War is held in more veneration than ever. 

**A skilled proficient in that line, a slaughterer of genius, 
Von Moltke, in reply to the peace delegates, once uttered 
these strange words: 

** *War is holy, war is ordained of God. It is one of the 
most sacred laws of the world. It maintains among men all 
the great and noble sentiments — honor, devotion, virtue, 
and courage, and saves them in short from falling into the 
most hideous materialism.' 

**So, then, bringing millions of men together into 
herds, marching by day and by night without rest, 
thinking of nothing, studying nothing, learning nothing, 
reading nothing, being useful to no one, wallowing in filth, 
sleeping in mud, living like brutes in a continual state of 
stupefaction, sacking towns, burning villages, ruining whole 
populations, then meeting another mass of human flesh, fall- 
ing upon them, making pools of blood, and plains of flesh 
mixed with trodden mire and red with heaps of corpses, 



152 *• THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

having your arms or legs carried off, your brains blown out 
for no advantage to anyone, and dying in some corner of a 
field while your old parents, your wife and children are 
perishing of hunger — that is what is meant by not falling 
into the most hideous materialism! 

"Warriors are the scourge of the world. We struggle 
against nature and ignorance and obstacles of all kinds to 
make our wretched life less hard. Learned men — bene- 
factors of all — spend their lives in working, in seeking what 
can aid, what be of use, what can alleviate the lot of their 
fellows. They devote themselves unsparingly to their task 
of usefulness, making one discovery after another, enlarging 
the sphere of human intelligence, extending the bounds of 
science, adding each day some new store to the sum of 
knowledge, gaining each day prosperity, ease, strength for 
their country. 

"War breaks out. In six months the generals have 
destroyed the work of twenty years of effort, of patience, 
and of genius. 

"That is what is meant by not falling into the most 
hideous materialism. 

'*We have seen it, war. We have seen men turned to 
brutes, frenzied, killing for fun, for terror, for bravado, for 
ostentation. Then when right is no more, law is dead, 
every notion of justice has disappeared. We have seen men 
shoot innocent creatures found on the road, and suspected 
because they were afraid. We have seen them kill dogs 
chained at their masters' doors to try their new revolvers, 
we have seen them fire on cows lying in a field for no rea- 
son whatever, simply for the sake of shooting, for a joke. 

"That is what is meant by not falling into the most 
hideous materialism. 

"Going into a country, cutting the man's throat who 
defends his house because he wears a blouse and has not a 
military cap on his head, burning the dwellings of wretched 



IS WITHIN Your 153 

beings who have nothing to eat, breaking furniture and steal- 
ing goods, drinking the wine found in the cellars, violating 
the women in the streets, burning thousands of francs' 
worth of powder, and leaving misery and cholera in one's 
track — 

**That is what is meant by not falling into the most 
hideous materialism. 

**What have they done, those warriors, that proves the 
least intelligence? Nothing. What have they invented? 
Cannons and muskets. That is all. 

'*What remains to us from Greece? Books and statues. 
Is Greece great from her conquests or her creations? 

**Was it the invasions of the Persians which saved Greece 
from falling into the most hideous materialism? 

**Were the invasions of the barbarians what saved and 
regenerated Rome? 

'*Was it Napoleon I. who carried forward the great intel- 
lectual movement started by the philosophers of the end of 
last century? 

"Yes, indeed, since government assumes the right of anni- 
hilating peoples thus, there is nothing surprising in the fact 
that the peoples assume the right of annihilating govern- 
ments. 

**They defend themselves. They are right. No one has 
an absolute right to govern others. It ought only to be 
done for the benefit of those who are governed. And it is 
as much the duty of anyone who governs to avoid war as it 
is the duty of a captain of a ship to avoid shipwreck. 

*'When a captain has let his ship come to ruin, he is 
judged and condemned, if he is found guilty of negligence 
or even incapacity. 

''Why should not the government be put on its trial 
after every declaration of war? If the people understood 
thaty if they themselves passed judgment on murderous govern- 
ments ^ if they refused to let themselves be killed for nothings if 



154 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

they would only turn their arms against those who have given 
them to them for massacre^ on that day war would be no more. 
But that day will never come'' * 

The author sees all the horror of war. He sees that it is 
caused by governments forcing men by deception to go out 
to slaughter and be slain without any advantage to them- 
selves. And he sees, too, that the men who make up the 
armies could turn their arms against the governments and 
bring them to judgment. But he thinks that that will 
never come to pass, and that there is, therefore, no escape 
from the present position. "I think war is terrible, but that 
it is inevitable ; that compulsory military service is as inevi- 
table as death, and that since government will always desire 
it, war will always exist.** 

So writes this talented and sincere writer, who is endowed 
with that power of penetrating to the innermost core of the 
subjects which is the essence of the poetic faculty. He 
brings before us all the cruelty of the inconsistency between 
men's moral sense and their actions, but without trying to 
remove it; seems to admit that this inconsistency must exist 
and that it is the poetic tragedy of life. 

Another no less gifted writer, Edouard Rod, paints in still 
more vivid colors the cruelty and madness of the present 
state (jf things. He too only aims at presenting its tragic 
features, without suggesting or forseeing any issue from the 
position. 

**What is the good of doing anything? What is the good 
of undertaking any enterprise? And how are we to love 
men in these troubled times when every fresh day is a 
menace of danger? . . . All we have begun, the plans we are 
developing, our schemes of work, the little good we may 
have been able to do, will it not all be swept away by the 
tempest that is in preparation? . . . Every where the earth is 



*Sur TEau," pp. 71-80. 



IS WITHIN Your ISS 

shaking under our feet and storm-clouds are gathering on 
our horizon which will have no pity on us. 

"Ah! if all we had to dread were the revolution which 
is held up as a specter to terrify us ! Since I cannot imagine 
a society more detestable than ours, I feel more skeptical 
than alarmed in regard to that which will replace it. If I 
should have to suffer from the change, I should be consoled 
by thinking that the executioners of that day were the vic- 
tims of the previous time, and the hope of something better 
would help us to endure the worst. But it is not that remote 
peril which frightens me. I see another danger, nearer and 
far more cruel; more cruel because there is no excuse for 
it, because it is absurd, because it can lead to no good. 
Every day one balances the chances of war on the morrow, 
every day they become more merciless. 

**The imagination revolts before the catastrophe which is 
coming at the end of our century as the goal of the progress 
of our era, and yet we must get used to facing it. For 
twenty years past every resource of science has been ex- 
hausted in the invention of engines of destruction, and soon 
a few charges of cannon will suffice to annihilate a whole 
army. No longer a few thousands of poor devils, who were 
paid a price for their blood, are kept under arms, but whole 
nations are under arms to cut each other's throats. They 
are robbed of their time now (by compulsory service) that 
they may be robbed of their lives later. To prepare them 
for the work of massacre, their hatred is kindled by per- 
suading them that they are hated. And peaceable men let 
themselves be played on thus and go and fall on one another 
with the ferocity of wild beasts ; furious troops of peaceful 
citizens taking up arms at an empty word of command, for 
some ridiculous question of frontiers or colonial trade 
interests — Heaven only knows what. . . They will go like 
sheep to the slaughter, knowing all the while where they are 
going, knowing that they are leaving their wives, knowing 



15^ *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

that their children will want for food, full of misgivings, yet 
intoxicated by the fine-sounding lies that are dinned into 
their ears. They will ma?xh without revolt, passive^ resigned — 
though the nm?tbers a7td the strength are theirs^ and they might, 
if they knew how to co-operate together, establish the reign of 
good sense and f rater 7iity, instead of the barbarous trickery 
of diplomacy. They will march to battle so deluded, so 
duped, that they will believe slaughter to be a duty, and will 
ask the benediction of God on their lust for blood. They 
will march to battle trampling underfoot the harvests they 
have sown, burning the towns they have built — with songs 
of triumph, festive music, and cries of jubilation. And 
their sons will raise statues to those who have done most in 
their slaughter. 

**The destiny of a whole generation depends on the hour 
in which some ill-fated politician may give the signal that 
will be followed. We know that the best of us will be cut 
down and our work will be destroyed in embryo. We know 
it and tremble with rage, but we can do nothing. We are held 
fast in the toils of officialdom and red tape, and too rude a 
shock would be needed to set us free. We are enslaved by 
the laws we set up for our protection, which have become 
our oppression. We are but the tools of that autocratic 
abstraction the state, which enslaves each individual in the 
name of the will of all, who would all, taken individually , desire 
exactly the opposite of ivhat they will be made to do. 

"And if it were only a generation that must be sacrificed! 
But there are graver interests at stake. 

V'The paid politicians, the ambitious statesmen, who 
exploit the evil passions of the populace, and the imbeciles 
who are deluded by fine-sounding phrases, have so embit- 
tered national feuds that the existence of a whole race will 
be at stake in the war of the morrow. One of the elements 
that constitute the modern world is threatened, the con- 
quered people will be wiped out of existence, and which- 



IS WITHIN Your IS7 

ever it may be, we shall see a moral force annihilated, as if 
there were too many forces to work for good — we shall have 
a new Europe formed on foundations so unjust, so brutal, 
so sanguinary, stained with so monstrous a crime, that it 
cannot but be worse than the Europe of to-day — more 
iniquitous, more barbarous, more violent. 

"Thus one feels crushed under the weight of an immense 
discouragement. We are struggling in a cul de sac with 
muskets aimed at us from the housetops. Our labor is like 
that of sailors executing their last task as the ship begins to 
sink. Our pleasures are those of the condemned victim, 
who is offered his choice of dainties a quarter of an hour 
before his execution. Thought is paralyzed by anguish, 
and the most it is capable of is to calculate — interpreting the 
vague phrases of ministers, spelling out the sense of the 
speeches of sovereigns, and ruminating on the words attrib- 
uted to diplomatists reported on the uncertain authority of 
the newspapers — whether it is to be to-morrow or the day 
after, this year or the next, that we are to be murdered. 
So that one might seek in vain in history an epoch more 
insecure, more crushed under the weight of suffering."* 

Here it is pointed out that the force is in the hands of 
those who work their own destruction, in the hands of the 
individual men who make up the masses ; it is pointed out 
that the source of the evil is the government. It would 
seem evident that the contradiction between life and con- 
science had reached the limit beyond which it cannot go, 
and after reaching this limit some solution of it must be 
found. 

But the author does not think so. He sees in this the 
tragedy of human life, and after depicting all the horror of 
the position he concludes that human life must be spent in 
the midst of this horror. 

* '*Le Sens de la Vie/' pp. 208-13. 



IS 8 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

So much for the attitude to war of those who regard it as 
something tragic and fated by destiny. 

The third category consists of men who have lost all con- 
science and, consequently, all common sense and feeling of 
humanity. 

To this category belongs Moltke, whose opinion has been 
quoted above by Maupassant, and the majority of military 
men, who have been educated in this cruel superstition, live 
by it, and consequently are often in all simplicity convinced 
that war is not only an inevitable, but even a necessary and 
beneficial thing. This is also the view of some civilians, so- 
called educated and cultivated people. 

Here is what the celebrated academician Camille Doucet 
writes in reply to the editor of the Revue des Revues^ where 
several letters on war were published together: 

**Dear Sir: When you ask the least warlike of acade- 
micians whether he is a partisan of war, his answer is known 
beforehand. 

"Alas! sir, you yourself speak of the pacific ideal inspir- 
ing your generous compatriots as a dream. 

'* During my life I have heard a great many good people 
protest against this frightful custom of international butchery, 
which all admit and deplore ; but how is it to be remedied? 

** Often, too, there have been attempts to suppress duel- 
ing; one would fancy that seemed an easy task: but not at 
all! All that has been done hitherto with that noble object 
has never been and never will be of use. 

**A11 the congresses of both hemispheres may vote against 
war, and against dueling too, but above all arbitrations, 
conventions, and legislations there will always be the per- 
sonal honor of individual 7nen^ which has always demanded 
dueling, and the interests of nations^ which will always 
demand war. 

**I wish none the less from the depths of my heart that 



IS WITHIN Your 159 

the Congress of Universal Peace may succeed at last in its 
very honorable and difficult enterprise. 

**I am, dear sir, etc., 

**Camille Doucet." 

The upshot of this is that personal honor requires men to 
fight, and the interests of nations require them to ruin and 
exterminate each other. As for the efforts to abolish war, 
they call for nothing but a smile. 

The opinion of another well-known academician, Jules 
Claretie, is of the same kind. 

'*Dear Sir [he writes]: For a man of sense there can 
be but one opinion on the subject of peace and war. 

**Humanity is created to live, to live free, to perfect and 
ameliorate its fate by peaceful labor. The general harmony 
preached by the Universal Peace Congress is but a dream 
perhaps, but at least it is the fairest of all dreams. Man is 
always looking toward the Promised Land, and there the 
harvests are to ripen with no fear of their being torn up by 

shells or crushed by cannon w^heels. . . But! Ah! but 

since philosophers and philanthropists are not the controll- 
ing powers, it is well for our soldiers to guard our frontier 
and homes, and their arms, skillfully used, are perhaps the 
surest guarantee of the peace we all love. 

** Peace is a gift only granted to the strong and the reso- 
lute. 

**I am, dear sir, etc., 

* 'Jules Claretie." 

The upshot of this letter is that there is no harm in talk- 
ing about what no one intends or feels obliged to do. But 
when it comes to practice, we must fight. 

And here now is the view lately expressed by the most 
popular novelist in Europe, Emile Zola; 



i6o *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

"I regard war as a fatal necessity, which appears inevita- 
ble for us from its close connection with human nature and 
the whole constitution of the world. I should wish that war 
could be put off for the longest possible time. Nevertheless, 
the moment will come when we shall be forced to go to war. 
I am considering it at this moment from the standpoint of 
universal humanity, and making no reference to our mis- 
understanding with Germany — a most trivial incident in the 
history of mankind. I say that war is necessary and bene- 
ficial, since it seems one of the conditions of existence for 
humanity. War confronts us everywhere, not only war be- 
tween different races and peoples, but war too, in private 
and family life. It seems one of the principal elements of 
progress, and every step in advance that humanity has taken 
hitherto has been attended by bloodshed. 

**Men have talked, and still talk, of disarmament, while 
disarmament is something impossible, to which, even if it 
were possible, we ought not to consent. I am convinced 
that a general disarmament throughout the world would 
involve something like a moral decadence, which would 
show itself in general feebleness, and would hinder the pro- 
gressive advancement of humanity. A warlike nation has 
always been strong and flourishing. The art of war has led 
to the development of all the other arts. History bears wit- 
ness to it. So in Athens and in Rome, commerce, manu- 
factures, and literature never attained so high a point of 
development as when those cities were masters of the whole 
world by force of arms. To take an example from times 
nearer our own, we may recall the age of Louis XIV. The 
wars of the Grand Monarque were not only no hindrance 
to the progress of the arts and sciences, but even, on the 
contrary, seem to have promoted and favored their develop- 
ment." 

So war is a beneficial thing! 

But the best expression of this attitude is the view of the 



IS wiTHm you:' i6i 

most gifted of the writers of this school, the academician de 
Voglie. This is what he writes in an article on the Military 
Section of the Exhibition of 1889: 

**0n the Esplanade des Invalides, among the exotic and 
colonial encampments, a building in a more severe style 
overawes the picturesque bazaar; all these fragments of the 
globe have come to gather round the Palace of War, and in 
turn our guests mount guard submissively before the mother 
building, but for whom they would not be here. Fine sub- 
ject for the antithesis of rhetoric, of humanitarians who 
could not fail to whimper over this juxtaposition, and to say 
that 'ceci tuera cela^' * that the union of the nations through 
science and labor will overcome the instinct of war. Let us 
leave them to cherish the chimera of a golden age, which 
would soon become, if it could be realized, an age of mud. 
All history teaches us that the one is created for the other, 
that blood is needed to hasten and cement the union of the 
nations. Natural science has ratified in our day the mys- 
terious law revealed to Joseph de Maistre by the intuition 
of his genius and by meditation on fundamental truths ; he 
saw the world redeeming itself from hereditary degenera- 
tions by sacrifice; science shows it advancing to perfection 
through struggle and violent selection ; there is the state- 
ment of the same law in both, expressed in different 
formulas. The statement is disagreeable, no doubt; but the 
laws of the world are not made for our pleasure, they are 
made for our progress. Let us enter this inevitable, neces- 
sary palace of war ; we shall be able to observe there how 
the most tenacious of our instincts, without losing any of its 
vigor, is transformed and adapted to the varying exigencies 
of historical epochs.** 

M. de Vogiie finds the necessity for war, according to his 
views, well expressed by the two great writers, Joseph de 

* Phrase quoted from Victor-Hugo, ** Notre- Dame de Paris.*' 



1 62 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Maistre and Darwin, whose statements he likes so much 
that he quotes them again. 

'*Dear Sir [he writes to the editor of the Revue des 
Revues'] : You ask me my view as to the possible success of 
the Universal Congress of Peace. I hold with Darwin that 
violent struggle is a law of nature which overrules all other 
laws; I hold with Joseph de Maistre that it is a divine law; 
two different ways of describing the same thing. If by 
some impossible chance a fraction of human society — all the 
civilized West, let us suppose — were to succeed in suspend- 
ing the action of this law, some races of stronger instincts 
would undertake the task of putting it into action against 
us: those races would vindicate nature's reasoning against 
human reason; they would be successful, because the cer- 
tainty of peace — I do not say peace, I say the certainty of 
peace — would, in half a century, engender a corruption and 
a decadence more destructive for mankind than the worst of 
wars. I believe that we must do with war — the criminal law 
of humanity — as with all our criminal laws, that is, soften 
them, put them in force as rarely as possible; use every 
effort to make their application unnecessary. But all the 
experience of history teaches us that they cannot be alto- 
gether suppressed so long as two men are left on earth, with 
bread, money, and a woman between them. 

**I should be very happy if the Congress would prove me 
in error. But I doubt if it can prove history, nature, and 
God in error also. 

*'I am, dear sir, etc. 

*^E. M. DE VOGUl" 

This amounts to saying that history, human nature, and 
God show us that so long as there are two men, and bread, 
money and a woman — there will be war. That is to say 
that no progress will lead men to rise above the savage con- 



IS iv/T//i,v you:' 163 

ception of life, which regards no participation of bread, 
money (money is good in this context) and woman possible 
without fighting. 

They are strange people, these men who assemble in Con- 
gresses, and make speeches to show us how to catch birds 
by putting salt on their tails, though they must know it is 
impossible to do it. And amazing are they too, who, like 
Maupassant, Rod, and many others, see clearly all the hor- 
ror of war, all the inconsistency of men not doing what is 
needful, right, and beneficial for them to do; who lament 
over the tragedy of life, and do not see that the whole 
tragedy is at an end directly men, ceasing to take account 
of any unnecessary considerations, refuse to do what is hate- 
ful and disastrous to them. They are amazing people truly, 
but those who, like De Voglie and others, who, professing 
the doctrine of evolution, regard war as not only inevitable, 
but beneficial, and therefore desirable — they are terrible, 
hideous, in their moral perversion. The others, at least, 
say that they hate evil, and love good, but these openly 
declare that good and evil do not exist. 

All discussion of the possibility of re-establishing peace 
instead of everlasting war — is the pernicious sentimentality 
of phrasemongers. There is a law of evolution by which it 
follows that I must live and act in an evil way; what is to 
be done? I am an educated man, I know the law of evolu- 
tion, and therefore I will act in an evil way. '' Entrons au 
palais de la guerre ^ There is the law of evolution, and 
therefore there is neither good nor evil, and one must live 
for the sake of one's personal existence, leaving the rest to 
the action of the law of evolution. This is the last word of 
refined culture, and with it, of that overshadowing of con- 
science which has come upon the educated classes of our 
times. The desire of the educated classes to support the 
ideas they prefer, and the order of existence based on them, 
has attained its furthest limits. They lie, and delude them- 



164 *' THE KIAjfDOM OF GOD 

selves, and one another, with the subtlest forms of decep- 
tion, simply to obscure, to deaden conscience. 

Instead of transforming their life into harmony with their 
conscience, they try by every means to stifle its voice. But 
it is in darkness that the light begins to shine, and so the 
light is rising upon our epoch. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SIGNIFICANCE OF COMPULSORY SERVICE. 

Universal Compulsory Service is not a Political Accident, but the 
Furthest Limit of the Contradiction Inherent in the Social Conception 
of Life — Origin of Authority in Society — Basis of Authority is Physi- 
cal Violence — To be Able to Perform its Acts of Violence Authority 
Needs a Special Organization — The Army — Authority, that is, Vio- 
lence, is the Principle which is Destroying the Social Conception of 
Life — Attitude of Authority to the Masses, that is, Attitude of Gov- 
ernment to Working Oppressed Classes — Governments Try to Foster 
in Working Classes the Idea that State Force is Necessary to Defend 
Them from External Enemies — But the Army is Principally Needed to 
Preserve Government from its ov^^n Subjects — The Working Classes — • 
Speech of M. de Caprivi — All Privileges of Ruling Classes Based on 
Violence — The Increase of Armies up to Point of Universal Service — 
Universal Compulsory Service Destroys all the Advantages of Social 
Life, which Government is Intended to Preserve — Compulsory Service 
is the Furthest Limit of Submission, since in Name of the State it 
Requires Sacrifice of all that can be Precious to a Man — Is Govern- 
ment Necessary ? — The Sacrifices Demanded by Government in Com- 
pulsory Service have No Longer any Reasonable Basis — And there is 
More Advantage to be Gained by not Submitting to the Demands 
of the State than by Submitting to Them. 

Educated people of the upper classes are trying to 
stifle the ever-growing sense of the necessity of transform- 
ing the existing social order. But life, which goes on 
growing more complex, and developing in the same direc- 
tion, and increases the inconsistencies and the sufferings 



IS WITHIN Your 165 

of men, brings them to the limit beyond which they can- 
not go. This furthest limit of inconsistency is universal 
compulsory military service. 

It is usually supposed that universal military service and 
the increased armaments connected with it, as well as the 
resulting increase of taxes and national debts, are a passing 
phenomenon, produced by the particular political situation 
of Europe, and that it may be removed by certain political 
combinations without any modification of the inner order 
of life. 

This is absolutely incorrect. Universal military service 
is only the internal inconsistency inherent in the social 
conception of life, carried to its furthest limits, and becom- 
ing evident when a certain stage of material development 
is reached. 

The social conception of life, we have seen, consists in 
the transfer of the aim of life from the individual to groups 
and their maintenance — to the tribe, family, race, or state. 

In the social conception of life it is supposed that since 
the aim of life is found in groups of individuals, individuals 
will voluntarily sacrifice their own interests for the interests 
of the group. And so it has been, and still is, in fact, in 
certain groups, the distinction being that they are the most 
primitive forms of association in the family or tribe or race, 
or even in the patriarchal state. Through tradition handed 
down by education and supported by religious sentiment, 
individuals without compulsion merged their interests in 
the interest of the group and sacrificed their own good for 
the general welfare. 

But the more complex and the larger societies become, 
and especially the more often conquest becomes the cause 
of the amalgamation of people into a state, the more often 
individuals strive to attain their own aims at the public 
expense, and the more often it becomes necessary to 
restrain these insubordinate individuals by recourse to 



1 66 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

authority, that is, to violence. The champions of the 
social conception of life usually try to connect the idea of 
authority, that is, of violence, with the idea of moral influ- 
ence, but this connection is quite impossible. 

The effect of moral influence on a man is to change his 
desires and to bend them in the direction of the duty 
required of him. The man who is controlled by moral 
influence acts in accordance with his own desires. Author- 
ity, in the sense in which the word is ordinarily understood, 
is a means of forcing a man to act in opposition to his 
desires. The man who submits to authority does not do 
as he chooses but as he is obliged by authority. Nothing 
can oblige a man to do what he does not choose except 
physical force, or the threat of it, that is — deprivation of 
freedom, blows, imprisonment, or threats — easily carried 
out — of such punishments. This is what authority consists 
of and always has consisted of. 

In spite of the unceasing efforts of those who happen to 
be in authority to conceal this and attribute some other sig- 
nificance to it, authority has always meant for man the 
cord, the chain with which he is bound and fettered, or the 
knout with which he is to be flogged, or the ax with which 
he is to have hands, ears, nose, or head cut off, or at the 
very least, the threat of these terrors. So it was under 
Nero and Ghenghis Khan, and so it is to-day, even under 
the most liberal government in the Republics of the United 
States or of France. If men submit to authority, it is only 
because they are liable to these punishments in case of 
non-submission. All state obligations, payment of taxes, 
fulfillment of state duties, and submission to punishments, 
exile, fines, etc., to which people appear to submit volun- 
tarily, are always based on bodily violence or the threat 
of it. 

The basis of authority is bodily violence. The possi- 
bility of applying bodily violence to people is provided 



IS WITHIN- Your 167 

above all by an organization of armed men, trained to act 
in unison in submission to one will. These bands of armed 
men, submissive to a single will, are what constitute the 
army. The army has always been and still is the basis of 
power. Power is always in the hands of those who control 
the army, and all men in power — from the Roman Caesars 
to the Russian and German Emperors — take more interest 
in their army than in anything, and court popularity in the 
army, knowing that if that is on their side their power is 
secure. 

The formation and aggrandizement of the army, indis- 
pensable to the maintenance of authority, is what has intro- 
duced into the social conception of life the principle that is 
destroying it. 

The object of authority and the justification for its exist- 
ence lie in the restraint of those who aim at attaining their 
personal interests to the detriment of the interests of 
society. 

But however power has been gained, those who possess 
it are in no way different from other men, and therefore no 
more disposed than others to subordinate their own inter- 
ests to those of the society. On the contrary, having the 
power to do so at their disposal, they are more disposed 
than others to subordinate the public interests to their own. 
Whatever means men have devised for preventing those in 
authority from over-riding public interests for their own 
benefit, or for intrusting power only to the most faultless 
people, they have not so far succeeded in either of those 
aims. 

All the methods of appointing authorities that have been 
tried, divine right, and election, and heredity, and ballot- 
ing, and assemblies and parliaments and senate — have all 
proved ineffectual. Everyone knows that not one of these 
methods attains the aim either of intrusting power only to 
the incorruptible, or of preventing power from being 



1 68 - THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

abused. Everyone knows on the contrary that men in 
authority — be they emperors, ministers, governors, or 
police officers — are always, simply from the possession of 
power, more liable to be demoralized, that is, to subordinate 
public interests to their personal aims than those who have 
not the power to do so. Indeed, it could not be other- 
wise. 

The state conception of life could be justified only so 
long as all men voluntarily sacrificed their personal interests 
to the public welfare. But so soon as there were indi- 
viduals who would not voluntarily sacrifice their own 
interests, and authority, that is, violence, was needed to 
restrain them, then the disintegrating principle of the 
coercion of one set of people by another set entered into 
the social conception of the organization based on it. 

For the authority of one set of men over another to attain 
its object of restraining those who override public interests 
for their personal ends, power ought only to be put into the 
hands of the impeccable, as it is supposed to be among the 
Chinese, and as it was supposed to be in the Middle Ages, 
and is even now supposed to be by those who believe in the 
consecration by anointing. Only under those conditions 
could the social organization be justified. 

But since this is not the case, and on the contrary men 
in power are always far from being saints, through the very 
fact of their possession of power, the social organization 
based on power has no justification. 

Even if there was once a time when, owing to the low 
standard of morals, and the disposition of men to violence, 
the existence of an authority to restrain such violence was 
an advantage, because the violence of government was less 
than the violence of individuals, one cannot but see that 
this advantage could not be lasting. As the disposition of 
individuals to violence diminished, and as the habits of the 
people became more civilized, and as power grew more 



IS WITHIN YOU." 169 

demoralized through lack of restraint, this advantage dis- 
appeared. 

The whole history of the last two thousand years is noth- 
ing but the history of this gradual change of relation 
between the moral development of the masses on the one 
hand and the demoralization of governments on the other. 

This, put simply, is how it has come to pass. 

Men lived in families, tribes, and races, at feud with one 
another, plundering, outraging, and killing one another. 
These violent hostilities were carried on on a large and on a 
small scale : man against man, family against family, tribe 
against tribe, race against race, and people against people. 
The larger and stronger groups conquered and absorbed 
the weaker, and the larger and stronger they became, the 
more internal feuds disappeared and the more the con- 
tinuity of the group seemed assured. 

The members of a family or tribe, united into one com- 
munity, are less hostile among themselves, and families and 
tribes do not die like one man, but have a continuity of 
existence. Between the members of one state, subject to 
a single authority, the strife between individuals seems still 
less and the life of the state seems even more secure. 

Their association into larger and larger groups was not 
the result of the conscious recognition of the benefits of 
such associations, as it is said to be in the story of the 
Varyagi. It was produced, on one hand, by the natural 
growth of population, and, on the other, by struggle and 
conquest. 

After conquest the power of the emperor puts an end to 
internal dissensions, and so the state conception of life 
justifies itself. But this justification is never more than 
temporary. Internal dissensions disappear only in propor- 
tion to the degree of oppression exerted by the authority 
over the dissentient individuals. The violence of internal 
feud crushed by authority reappears in authority itself, 



I70 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

which falls into the hands of men who, like the rest, are 
frequently or always ready to sacrifice the public welfare 
to their personal interest, with the difference that their 
subjects cannot resist them, and thus they are exposed to 
all the demoralizing influence of authority. And thus the 
evil of violence, when it passes into the hands of authority, 
is always growing and growing, and in time becomes greater 
than the evil it is supposed to suppress, while, at the same 
time, the tendency to violence in the members of the society 
becomes weaker and weaker, so that the violence of 
authority is less and less needed. 

Government authority, even if it does suppress private 
violence, always introduces into the life of men fresh forms 
of violence, which tend to become greater and greater in 
proportion to the duration and strength of the govern, 
ment. 

So that though the violence of power is less noticeable 
in government than when it is employed by members of 
society against one another, because it finds expression in 
submission, and not in strife, it nevertheless exists, and 
often to a greater degree than in former days. 

And it could not be otherwise, since, apart from the 
demoralizing influence of power, the policy or even the 
unconscious tendency of those in power will always be to 
reduce their subjects to the extreme of weakness, for the 
weaker the oppressed, the less effort need be made to keep 
him in subjection. 

And therefore the oppression of the oppressed always 
goes on growing up to the furthest limit, beyond which it 
cannot go without killing the goose with the golden eggs. 
And if the goose lays no more eggs, like the American 
Indians, negroes, and Fijians, then it is killed in spite of 
the sincere protests of philanthropists. 

The most convincing example of this is to be found in 
the condition of the working classes of our epoch, who are 



/S WITHIN YOU.'' 171 

in reality no better than the slaves of ancient times sub- 
dued by conquest. 

In spite of the pretended efforts of the higher classes to 
ameliorate the position of the workers, all the working 
classes of the present day are kept down by the inflexible 
iron law by which they only get just what is barely neces- 
sary, so that they are forced to work without ceasing while 
still retaining strength enough to labor for their employers, 
who are really those who have conquered and enslaved 
them. 

So it has always been. In ratio to the duration and 
increasing strength of authority its advantages for its sub- 
jects disappear and its disadvantages increase. 

And this has been so, independently of the forms of 
government under which nations have lived. The only 
difference is that under a despotic form of government the 
authority is concentrated in a small number of oppressors 
and violence takes a cruder form ; under constitutional 
monarchies and republics as in France and America author- 
ity is divided among a great number of oppressors and the 
forms assumed by violence is less crude, but its effect of 
making the disadvantages of authority greater than its 
advantages, and of enfeebling the oppressed to the furthest 
extreme to which they can be reduced with advantage to 
the oppressors, remains always the same. 

Such has been and still is the condition of all the 
oppressed, but hitherto they have not recognized the fact. 
In the majority of instances they have believed in all sim- 
plicity that governments exist for their benefit ; that they 
would be lost without a government ; that the very idea of 
living without a government is a blasphemy which one 
hardly dare put into words ; that this is the — for some 
reason terrible — doctrine of anarchism, with which a mental 
picture of all kinds of horrors is associated. 

People have believed, as though it were something fully 



172 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

proved, and so needing no proof, that since all nations have 
hitherto developed in the form of states, that form of 
organization is an indispensable condition of the develop- 
ment of humanity. 

And in that way it has lasted for hundreds and thou- 
sands of years, and governments — those who happened to 
be in power — have tried it, and are now trying more zeal- 
ously than ever to keep their subjects in this error. 

So it was under the Roman emperors and so it is now. 
In spite of the fact that the sense of the uselessness and 
even injurious effects of state violence is more and more 
penetrating into men's consciousness, things might have 
gone on in the same way forever if governments were not 
under the necessity of constantly increasing their armies in 
order to maintain their power. 

It is generally supposed that governments strengtheil 
their forces only to defend the state from other states, in 
oblivion of the fact that armies are necessary, before all 
things, for the defense of governments from their own 
oppressed and enslaved subjects. 

That has always been necessary, and has become more 
and more necessary with the increased diffusion of educa- 
tion among the masses, with the improved communication 
between people of the same and of different nationalities. 
It has become particularly indispensable now in the face of 
communism, socialism, anarchism, and the labor movement 
generally. Governments feel that it is so, and strengthen 
the force of their disciplined armies. * 

In the German Reichstag not long ago, in reply to a 

* The fact that in America the abuses of authority exist in spite of the 
small number of their troops not only fails to disprove this position, but 
positively confirms it. In America there are fewer soldiers than in 
other states. That is why there is nowhere else so little oppression of 
the working classes, and no country where the end of the abuses of 
government and of government itself seems so near. Of late as the com- 



IS WITHIN Your 173 

question why funds were needed for raising the salaries of 
the under-officers, the German Chancellor openly declared 
that trustworthy under-officers were necessary to contend 
against socialism. Caprivi only said aloud what every 
statesman knows and assiduously conceals from the people. 
The reason to which he gave expression is essentially the 
same as that which made the French kings and the popes 
engage Swiss and Scotch guards, and makes the Rus- 
sian authorities of to-day so carefully distribute the re- 
cruits, so that the regiments from the frontiers are stationed 
in central districts, and the regiments from the center are 
stationed on the frontiers. The meaning of Caprivi's 
speech, put into plain language, is that funds are needed, 
not to resist foreign foes, but to buy under-officers to be 
ready to act against the enslaved toiling masses. 

Caprivi incautiously gave utterance to what everyone 
knows perfectly well, or at least feels vaguely if he does not 
recognize it, that is, that the existing order of life is as it 
is, not, as would be natural and right, because the people 
wish it to be so, but because it is so maintained by state 
violence, by the army with its bought under-officers and 
generals. 

If the laborer has no land, if he cannot use the natural 
right of every man to derive subsistence for himself and 
his family out of the land, that is not because the people 
wish it to be so, but because a certain set of men, the land- 
owners, have appropriated the right of giving or refusing 
admittance to the land to the laborers. And this abnormal 
order of things is maintained by the army. If the immense 

binations of laborers gain in strength, one hears more and more fre- 
quently the cry raised for the increase of the army, though the United 
States are not threatened with any attack from without. The upper 
classes know that an army of fifty thousand will soon be insufficient, and 
no longer relying on Pinkerton's men, they feel that the security of 
their position depends on the increased strength of the army. 



174 ** THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

wealth produced by the labor of the working classes is not 
regarded as the property of all, but as the property of a 
few exceptional persons ; if labor is taxed by authority and 
the taxes spent by a few on what they think fit ; if strikes 
on the part of laborers are repressed, while on the part of 
capitalists they are encouraged ; if certain persons appro- 
priate the right of choosing the form of the education, 
religious and secular, of children, and certain persons 
monopolize the right of making the laws all must obey, and 
so dispose of the lives and properties of other people — all 
this is not done because the people wish it and because it 
is what is natural and right, but because the government 
and ruling classes wish this to be so for their own benefit, 
and insist on its being so even by physical violence. 

Everyone, if he does not recognize this now, will know 
that it is so at the first attempt at insubordination or at a 
revolution of the existing order. 

Armies, then, are needed by governments and by the 
ruling classes above all to support the present order, 
which, far from being the result of the people's needs, is 
often in direct antagonism to them, and is only beneficial to 
the government and ruling classes. 

To keep their subjects in oppression and to be able to 
enjoy the fruits of their labor the government must have 
armed forces. 

But there is not only one government. There are other 
governments, exploiting their subjects by violence in the 
same way, and always ready to pounce down on any other 
government and carry off the fruits of the toil of its 
enslaved subjects. And so every government needs an 
army also to protect its booty from its neighbor brigands. 
Every government is thus involuntarily reduced to the 
necessity of emulating one another in the increase of their 
armies. This increase is contagious, as Montesquieu 
pointed out 150 years ago. 



IS wiTHiisr you:' 175 

Every increase in the army of one state, with the aim of 
self-defense against its subjects, becomes a source of 
danger for neighboring states and calls for a similar in- 
crease in their armies. 

The armed forces have reached their present number 
of millions not only through the menace of danger from 
neighboring states, but principally through the necessity 
of subduing every effort at revolt on the part of the sub- 
jects. 

Both causes, mutually dependent, contribute to the same 
result at once ; troops are required against internal forces 
and also to keep up a position with other states. One is 
the result of the other. The despotism of a government 
always increases with the strength of the army and its 
external successes, and the aggressiveness of a govern- 
ment increases with its internal despotism. 

The rivalry of the European states in constantly increas- 
ing their forces has reduced them to the necessity of having 
recourse to universal military service, since by that means 
the greatest possible number of soldiers is obtained at the 
least possible expense. Germany first hit on this device. 
And directly one state adopted it the others were obliged 
to do the same. And by this means all citizens are under 
arms to support the iniquities practiced upon them; all 
citizens have become their own oppressors. 

Universal military service was an inevitable logical 
necessity, to which we were bound to come. But it is also 
the last expression of the inconsistency inherent in the 
social conception of life, when violence is needed to main- 
tain it. This inconsistency has become obvious in univer- 
sal military service. In fact, the whole significance of the 
social conception of life consists in man's recognition of 
the barbarity of strife between individuals, and the transi- 
toriness of personal life itself, and the transference of the 
aim of life to groups of persons. But with universal 



17^ " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

military service it comes to pass that men, after making 
every sacrifice to get rid of the cruelty of strife and the 
insecurity of existence, are called upon to face all the perils 
they had meant to avoid. And in addition to this the 
state, for whose sake individuals renounced their personal 
advantages, is exposed again to the same risks of inse- 
curity and lack of permanence as the individual himself 
was in previous times. 

Governments were to give men freedom from the 
cruelty of personal strife and security in the permanence of 
the state order of existence. But instead of doing that 
they expose the individuals to the same necessity of strife, 
substituting strife with individuals of other states for strife 
with neighbors. And the danger of destruction for the 
individual, and the state too, they leave just as it was. 

Universal military service may be compared to the efforts 
of a man to prop up his falling house who so surrounds it 
and fills it with props and buttresses and planks and 
scaffolding that he manages to keep the house standing 
only by making it impossible to live in it. 

In the same way universal military service destroys all 
the benefits of the social order of life which it is employed 
to maintain. 

The advantages of social organization are security of 
property and labor and associated action for the improve- 
ment of existence — universal military service destroys all 
this. 

The taxes raised from the people for war preparations 
absorb the greater part of the produce of labor which the 
army ought to defend. 

The withdrawing of all men from the ordinary course of 
life destroys the possibility of labor itself. The danger 
of war, ever ready to break out, renders all reforms of 
social life vain and fruitless. 

In former days if a man were told that if he did not 



IS WITHIN you:' 177 

acknowledge the authority of the state, he would be ex- 
posed to attack from enemies domestic and foreign, that he 
would have to resist them alone, and would be liable to be 
killed, and that therefore it would be to his advantage to 
put up with some hardships to secure himself from these 
calamities, he might well believe it, seeing that the sacrifices 
he made to the state were only partial and gave him the 
hope of a tranquil existence in a permanent state. But 
now, when the sacrifices have been increased tenfold and 
the promised advantages are disappearing, it would be a 
natural reflection that submission to authority is absolutely 
useless. 

But the fatal significance of universal military service, as 
the manifestation of the contradiction inherent in the social 
conception of life, is not only apparent in that. The greatest 
manifestation of this contradiction consists in the fact that 
every citizen in being made a soldier becomes a prop of the 
government organization, and shares the responsibility of 
everything the government does, even though he may not 
admit its legitimacy. 

Governments assert that armies are needed above all for 
external defense, but that is not true. They are needed 
principally against their subjects, and every man, under 
universal military service, becomes an accomplice in all the 
acts of violence of the government against the citizens 
without any choice of his own. 

To convince oneself of this one need only remember 
what things are done in every state, in the name of order 
and the public welfare, of which the execution always falls 
to the army. All civil outbreaks for dynastic or other party 
reasons, all the executions that follow on such disturbances, 
all repression of insurrections, and military intervention to 
break up meetings and to suppress strikes, all forced extor- 
tion of taxes, all the iniquitous distributions of land, all the 
restrictions on labor — are either carried out directly by the 



178 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

military or by the police with the army at their back. Any- 
one who serves his time in the army shares the responsi- 
bility of all these things, about which he is, in some cases, 
dubious, while very often they are directly opposed to his 
conscience. People are unwilling to be turned out of the 
land they have cultivated for generations, or they are un- 
willing to disperse when the government authority orders 
them, or they are unwilling to pay the taxes required of 
them, or to recognize laws as binding on them when they 
have had no hand in making them, or to be deprived of their 
nationality — and I, in the fulfillment of my military duty, 
must go and shoot them for it. How can I help asking 
myself when I take part in such punishments, whether they 
are just, and whether I ought to assist in carrying them 
out ? 

Universal service is the extreme limit of violence neces- 
sary for the support of the whole state organization, and it 
is the extreme limit to which submission on the part of the 
subjects can go. It is the keystone of the whole edifice, 
and its fall will bring it all down. 

The time has come when the ever-growing abuse of 
power by governments and their struggles with one another 
has led to their demanding such material and even moral 
sacrifices from their subjects that everyone is forced to 
reflect and ask himself, *^ Can I make these sacrifices ? And 
for the sake of what am I making them? I am expected 
for the sake of the state to make these sacrifices, to re- 
nounce everything that can be precious to man — peace, 
family, security, and human dignity." What is this state, for 
whose sake such terrible sacrifices have to be made ? And 
why is it so indispensably necessary ? ^* The state,*' they 
tell us, '' is indispensably needed, in the first place, because 
without it we should not be protected against the attacks 
of evil-disposed persons ; and secondly, except for the state 
we should be savages and should have neither religion, cul- 



IS WITHIN Your 179 

ture, education, nor commerce, nor means of communication, 
nor other social institutions ; and thirdly, without the state 
to defend us we should be liable to be conquered and en- 
slaved by neighboring peoples.'* 

** Except for the state/' they say, '^ we should be exposed 
to the attacks of evil-disposed persons in our own country." 

But who are these evil-disposed persons in our midst from 
whose attacks we are preserved by the state and its army ? 
Even if, three or four centuries ago, when men prided 
themselves on their warlike prowess, when killing men was 
considered an heroic achievement, there were such persons; 
we know very well that there are no such persons now, that 
we do not nowadays carry or use firearms, but everyone 
professes humane principles and feels sympathy for his 
fellows, and wants nothing more than we all do — that is, to 
be left in peace to enjoy his existence undisturbed. So that 
nowadays there are no special malefactors from whom the 
state could defend us. If by these evil-disposed persons is 
meant the men who are punished as criminals, we know 
very well that they are not a different kind of being like 
wild beasts among sheep, but are men just like ourselves, 
and no more naturally inclined to crimes than those against 
whom they commit them. We know now that threats and 
punishments cannot diminish their number; that that can 
only be done by change of environment and moral influence. 
So that the justification of state violence on the ground of 
the protection it gives us from evil-disposed persons, even 
if it had some foundation three or four centuries ago, has 
none whatever now. At present one would rather say on 
the contrary that the action of the state with its cruel 
methods of punishment, behind the general moral standard 
of the age, such as prisons, galleys, gibbets, and guillotines, 
tends rather to brutalize the people than to civilize them, 
and consequently rather to increase than diminish the 
number of malefactors. 



l8o '^ THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

" Except for the state," they tell us, " we should not have 
any religion, education, culture, means of communication, 
and so on. Without the state men would not have been 
able to form the social institutions needed for doing any- 
thing." This argument too was well founded only some 
centuries ago. 

If there was a time when people were so disunited, when 
they had so little means of communication and interchange 
of ideas, that they could not co-operate and agree together 
in any common action in commerce, economics, or education 
without the state as a center, this want of common action 
exists no longer. The great extension of means of com- 
munication and interchange of ideas has made men com- 
pletely able to dispense with state aid in forming societies, 
associations, corporations, and congresses for scientific, 
economic, and political objects. Indeed government is 
more often an obstacle than an assistance in attaining these 
aims. 

From the end of last century there has hardly been a 
single progressive movement of humanity which has not 
been retarded by the government. So it has been with 
abolition of corporal punishment, of trial by torture, and 
of slavery, as well as with the establishment of the liberty 
of the press and the right of public meeting. In our day 
governments not only fail to encourage, but directly hinder 
every movement by which people try to work out new forms 
of life for themselves. Every attempt at the solution of 
the problems of labor, land, politics, and religion meets with 
direct opposition on the part of government. 

"Without governments nations would be enslaved by 
their neighbors." It is scarcely necessary to refute this 
last argument. It carries its refutation on the face of it. 
The government, they tell us, with its army, is necessary to 
defend us from neighboring states who might enslave us. 
But we know this is what all governments say of one 



IS WITHIN Your i8i 

another, and yet we know that all the European nations 
profess the same principles of liberty and fraternity, and 
therefore stand in no need of protection against one 
another. And if defense against barbarous nations is 
meant, one-thousandth part of the troops now under arms 
would be amply sufficient for that purpose. We see that it 
is really the very opposite of what we have been told. 
The power of the state, far from being a security against 
the attacks of our neighbors, exposes us, on the contrary, 
to much greater danger of such attacks. So that every 
man who is led, through his compulsory service in the 
army, to reflect on the value of the state for whose sake he 
is expected to be ready to sacrifice his peace, security, and 
life, cannot fail to perceive that there is no kind of justifi- 
cation in modern times for such a sacrifice. 

And it is not only from the theoretical standpoint that 
every man must see that the sacrifices demanded by the 
state have no justification. Even looking at it practically, 
weighing, that is to say, all the burdens laid on him by the 
state, no man can fail to see that for him personally to 
comply with state demands and serve in the army, would, 
in the majority of cases, be more disadvantageous than to 
refuse to do so. 

If the majority of men choose to submit rather than to 
refuse, it is not the result of sober balancing of advantages 
and disadvantages, but because they are induced by a 
kind of hypnotizing process practiced upon them. In 
submitting they simply yield to the suggestions given 
them as orders, without thought or effort of will. To resist 
would need independent thought and effort of which every 
man is not capable. Even apart from the moral signifi- 
cance of compliance or non-compliance, considering 
material advantage only, non-compliance will be more 
advantageous in general. 

Whoever I may be, whether I belong to the well-to-do 



1 82 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

class of the oppressors, or the working- class of the 
oppressed, in either case the disadvantages of non-com- 
pliance are less and its advantages greater than those of 
compliance. If I belong to the minority of oppressors the 
disadvantages of non-compliance will consist in my being 
brought to judgment for refusing to perform my duties to 
the state, and if I am lucky, being acquitted or, as is done 
in the case of the Mennonites in Russia, being set to work 
out my military service at some civil occupation for the 
state ; while if I am unlucky, I may be condemned to exile 
or imprisonment for two or three years (I judge by the 
cases that have occurred in Russia), possibly to even longer 
imprisonment, or possibly to death, though the probability 
of that latter is very remote. 

So much for the disadvantages of non-compliance. The 
disadvantages of compliance will be as follows : if I am 
lucky I shall not be sent to murder my fellow-creatures, 
and shall not be exposed to great danger of being maimed 
and killed, but shall only be enrolled into military slavery. 
I shall be dressed up like a clown, I shall be at the beck 
and call of every man of a higher grade than my own from 
corporal to field-marshal, shall be put through any bodily 
contortions at their pleasure, and after being kept from 
one to five years I shall have for ten years afterward to 
be in readiness to undertake all of it again at any minute. 
If I am unlucky I may, in addition, be sent to war, where I 
shall be forced to kill men of foreign nations who have 
done me no harm, where I may be maimed or killed, or 
sent to certain destruction as in the case of the garrison of 
Sevastopol, and other cases in every war, or what would 
be most terrible of all, I may be sent against my own com- 
patriots and have to kill my own brothers for some dynastic 
or other state interests which have absolutely nothing to 
do with me. So much for the comparative disadvant- 
ages. 



IS WITHIN Your 183 

The comparative advantages of compliance and non- 
compliance are as follows : 

For the man who submits, the advantages will be that, 
after exposing himself to all the humiliation and perform- 
ing all the barbarities required of him, he miiy, if he escapes 
being killed, get a decoration of red or gold tinsel to stick 
on his clown's dress ; he may, if he is very lucky, be put in 
command of hundreds of thousands of others as brutalized 
as himself ; be called a field-marshal, and get a lot of 
money. 

The advantages of the man who refuses to obey will con- 
sist in preserving his dignity as a man, gaining the approba- 
tion of good men, and above all knowing that he is doing 
the work of God, and so undoubtedly doing good to his 
fellow-men. 

So much for the advantages and disadvantages of both 
lines of conduct for a man of the wealthy classes, an op- 
pressor* For a man of the poor working class the advan- 
tages and disadvantages will be the same, but with a great 
increase of disadvantages. The disadvantages for the poor 
man who submits will be aggravated by the fact that he 
will by taking part in it, and, as it were, assenting to it 
strengthen the state of subjection in which he is held him- 
self. 

But no considerations as to how far the state is useful or 
beneficial to the men who help to support it by serving in 
the army, nor of the advantages or disadvantages for the 
individual of compliance or non-compliance with state 
demands, will decide the question of the continued exist- 
ence or the abolition of government. This question will 
be finally decided beyond appeal by the religious con- 
sciousness or conscience of every man who is forced, 
whether he will or no, through universal conscription, to 
face the question whether the state is to continue to exist 
or not. 



184 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 



CHAPTER VIII. 

DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE MUST 
INEVITABLY BE ACCEPTED BY MEN OF THE PRESENT 
DAY. 

Christianity is Not a System of Rules, but a New Conception of Life, and 
therefore it was Not Obligatory and was Not Accepted in its True Sig- 
nificance by All, but only by a Few — Christianity is, Moreover, 

, Prophetic of the Destruction of the Pagan Life, and therefore of 
Necessity of the Acceptance of the Christian Doctrines — Non-resist- 
ance of Evil by Force is One Aspect of the Christian Doctrine, which 
must Inevitably in Our Times be Accepted by Men — Two Methods of 
Deciding Every Quarrel — First Method is to Find a Universal Defini- 
tion of Evil, which All Must Accept, and to Resist this Evil by Force 
— Second Method is the Christian One of Complete Non-resistance by 
Force — Though the Failure of the First Method was Recognized since 
the Early Days of Christianity, it was Still Proposed, and only as 
Mankind has Progressed it has Become More and More Evident that 
there Cannot be any Universal Definition of Evil — This is Recog- 
nized by All at the Present Day, and if Force is Still Used to Resist 
Evil, it is Not Because it is Now Regarded as Right, but Because 
People Don't Know How to Avoid It — The DifRculty of Avoiding It 
is the Result of the Subtle and Complex Character of the Government 
Use of Force — Force is Used in Four Ways : Intimidation, Bribery, 
Hypnotism, and Coercion by Force of Arms — State Violence Can 
Never be Suppressed by the Forcible Overthrow of the Government — 
Men are Led by the Sufferings of the Pagan Mode of Life to the Neces- 
sity of Accepting Christ's Teaching with its Doctrine of Non-resist- 
ance by Force — The Consciousness of its Truth which is Diffused 
Throughout Our Society, Will also Bring About its Acceptance — This 
Consciousness is in Complete Contradiction with Our Life — This is 
Specially Obvious in Compulsory Military Service, but Through Habit 
and the Application of the Four Methods of Violence by the State, 
Men do not See this Inconsistency of Christianity with Life of a 
Soldier — They do Not even See It, though the Authorities Themselves 
Show all the Immorality of a Soldier's Duties with Perfect Clearness — 
The Call to Military Service is the Supreme Test for Every Man, 
when the Choice is Offered Him, between Adopting the Christian 
Doctrine of Non-resistance, or Slavishly Submitting to the Existing 



IS WITHIN Your 185 

State Organization — Men Usually Renounce All They Hold Sacred, 
and Submit to the Demands of Government, Seeming to See No 
Other Course Open to Them — For Men of the Pagan Conception of 
Life there is No Other Course Open, and Never Will Be, in Spite of 
the Growing Horrors of War — Society, Made Up of Such Men, Must 
Perish, and No Social Reorganization Can Save It — Pagan Life Has 
Reached Its Extreme Limit, and Will Annihilate Itself. 

It is often said that if Christianity is a truth, it ought to 
have been accepted by everyone directly it appeared, and 
ought to have transformed men's lives for the better. But 
this is like saying that if the seed were ripe it ought at 
once to bring forth stalk, flower, and fruit. ^-^ 

The Christian religion is not a legal system which, being 
imposed by violence, may transform men's lives. Chris- 
tianity is a new and higher conception of life. A new con- 
ception of life cannot be imposed on men ; it can only be 
freely assimilated. And it can only be freely assimilated 
in two ways : one spiritual and internal, the other experi- 
mental and external. 

Some people — a minority — by a kind of prophetic instinct 
divine the truth of the doctrine, surrender themselves to it 
and adopt it. Others — the majority — only through a long 
course of mistakes, experiments, and suffering are brought 
to recognize the truth of the doctrine and the necessity of 
adopting it. 

And by this experimental external method the majority 
of Christian men have now been brought to this necessity 
of assimilating the doctrine. One sometimes wonders what 
necessitated the corruption of Christianity which is now 
the greatest obstacle to its acceptance in its true signifi- 
cance. 

If Christianity had been presented to men in its true, 
uncorrupted form, it would not have been accepted by the 
majority, who would have been as untouched by it as the 
nations of Asia are now. The peoples who accepted it in 



1 86 ** THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

its corrupt form were subjected to its slow but certain 
influence, and by a long course of errors and experiments 
and their resultant sufferings have now been brought to 
the necessity of assimulating it in its true significance. 

The corruption of Christianity and its acceptance in its 
corrupt form by the majority of men was as necessary as it 
is that the seed should remain hidden for a certain time in 
the earth in order to germinate. 

Christianity is at once a doctrine of truth and a proph- 
, ecy. Eighteen centuries ago Christianity revealed to men 
the truth in which they ought to live, and at the same time 
foretold what human life would become if men would not 
live by it but continued to live by their previous principles, 
and what it would become if they accepted the Christian 
doctrine and carried it out in their lives. 

Laying down in the Sermon on the Mount the principles 
by which to guide men's lives, Christ said : ** Whosoever 
heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken 
him unto a wise man, who built his house upon a rock; and 
the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not, for it was 
founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these say- 
ings, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish 
man, who built his house upon the sand ; and the rain 
descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and 
beat upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall 
of it " (Matt. vii. 24-27). 

And now after eighteen centuries the prophecy has been 
fulfilled. Not having followed Christ's teaching generally 
and its application to social life in non-resistance to evil, 
men have been brought in spite of themselves to the inevi- 
table destruction foretold by Christ for those who do not 
fulfill his teaching. 

People often think the question of non-resistance to evil 
by force is a theoretical one, which can be neglected. Yet 



IS WITHIN Your 187 

this question is presented by life itself to all men, and calls 
for some answer from every thinking man. Ever since 
Christianity has been outwardly professed, this question is 
for men in their social life like the question which presents 
itself to a traveler when the road on which he has been 
journeying divides into two branches. He must go on 
and he cannot say : I will not think about it, but will go on 
just as I did before. There was one road, now there are 
two, and he must make his choice. 

/ In the same way since Christ's teaching has been known 

A)y men they cannot say : I will live as before and will not 

[decide the question of resistance or non-resistance to evil 

Iby force. At every new struggle that arises one must 

inevitably decide ; am I, or am I not, to resist by force 

what I regard as evil. 

The question of resistance or non-resistance to evil arose 
when the first conflict between men took place, since every 
conflict is nothing else than resistance by force to what 
each of the combatants regards as evil. But before Christ, 
men did not see that resistance by force to what each 
regards as evil, simply because one thinks evil what the 
other thinks good, is only one of the methods of settling 
the dispute, and that there is another method, that of not 
resisting evil by force at all. 

Before Christ's teaching, it seemed to men that the one 
only means of settling a dispute was by resistance to evil 
by force. And they acted accordingly, each of the com- 
batants trying to convince himself and others that what 
each respectively regards as evil, is actually, absolutely 
evil. 

And to do this from the earliest time men have devised 
definitions of evil and tried to make them binding on every- 
one. And such definitions of evil sometimes took the form 
of laws, supposed to have been received by supernatural 
means, sometimes of the commands of rulers or assemblies 



l88 <♦ THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

to whom infallibility was attributed. Men resorted to vio- 
lence against others, and convinced themselves and others 
that they were directing their violence against evil recog- 
nized as such by all. 

This means was employed from the earliest times, espe- 
cially by those who had gained possession of authority, and 
for a long while its irrationality was not detected. 

But the longer men lived in the world and the more com- 
plex their relations became, the more evident it was that to 
resist by force what each regarded as evil was irrational, 
that conflict was in no way lessened thereby, and that no 
human definitions can succeed in making what some regard 
as evil be accepted as such by others. 

Already at the time Christianity arose, it was evident to 
a great number of people in the Roman Empire where it 
arose, that what was regarded as evil by Nero and Caligula 
could not be regarded as evil by others. Even at that time 
men had begun to understand that human laws, though 
given out for divine laws, were compiled by men, and can- 
not be infallible, whatever the external majesty with which 
they are invested, and that erring men are not rendered 
infallible by assembling together and calling themselves a 
senate or any other name. Even at that time this was felt 
and understood by many. And it was then that Christ 
preached his doctrine, which consisted not only of the pro- 
hibition of resistance to evil by force, but gave a new con- 
ception of life and a means of putting an end to conflict 
between all men, not by making it the duty of one section 
only of mankind to submit without conflict to what is pre- 
scribed to them by certain authorities, but by making it the 
duty of all — and consequently of those in authority— not to 
resort to force against anyone in any circumstances. 

This doctrine was accepted at the time by only a very 
small number of disciples. The majority of men, especially 
all who were in power, even after the nominal acceptance of 



IS WITHIN Your 189 

Christianity, continued to maintain for themselves the prin- 
ciple of resistance by force to what they regarded as evil. 
So it was under the Roman and Byzantine emperors, and so 
it continued to be later. 

The insufficiency of the principle of the authoritative defi- 
nition of evil and resistance to it by force, evident as it 
was in the early ages of Christianity, becomes still more 
obvious through the division of the Roman Empire into 
many states of equal authority, through their hostilities and 
the internal conflicts that broke out within them. 

But men were not ready to accept the solution given by 
Christ, and the old definitions of evil, which ought to be 
resisted, continued to be laid down by means of making 
laws binding on all and enforced by forcible means. The 
authority who decided what ought to be regarded as evil 
and resisted by force was at one time the Pope, at another 
an emperor or king, an elective assembly or a whole nation. 
But both within arid without the state there were always 
men to be found who did not accept as binding on them- 
selves the laws given out as the decrees of a god, or made 
by men invested with a sacred character, or the institutions 
supposed to represent the will of the nation ; and there 
were men who thought good what the existing authorities 
regarded as bad, and who struggled against the authorities 
with the same violence as was employed against them. 

The men invested with religious authority regarded as 
evil what the men and institutions invested with temporal 
authority regarded as good and vice versa^ and the struggle 
grew more and more intense. And the longer men used 
violence as the means of settling their disputes, the more 
obvious it became that it was an unsuitable means, since 
there could be no external authority able to define evil 
recognized by all. 

Things went on like this for eighteen centuries, and at 
last reached the present position in which it is absolutely 



v' 



190 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

IjObvious that there is, and can be, no external definition of 
(ievil binding upon all. Men have come to the point of 
ceasing to believe in the possibility or even desirability of 
finding and establishing such a general definition. It has 
come to men in power ceasing to attempt to prove that 
what they regard as evil is evil, and simply declaring that 
they regard as evil what they don't like, while their subjects 
no longer obey them because they accept the definition of 
evil laid down by them, but simply obey because they can- 
not help themselves. It was not because it was a good 
thing, necessary and beneficial to men, and the contrary 
course would have been an evil, but simply because it was 
the will of those in power that Nice was incorporated into 
France, and Lorraine into Germany, and Bohemia into 
Austria, and that Poland was divided, and Ireland and 
India ruled by the English government, and that the 
Chinese are attacked and the Africans slaughtered, and the 
Chinese prevented from immigrating by the Americans, and 
the Jews persecuted by the Russians, and that landowners 
appropriate lands they do not cultivate and capitalists 
enjoy the fruits of the labor of others. It has come to the 
present state of things ; one set of men commit acts of 
violence no longer on the pretext of resistance to evil, but 
simply for their profit or their caprice, and another set sub- 
mit to violence, not because they suppose, as was supposed 
in former times, that this violence was practised upon them 
for the sake of securing them from evil, but simply because 
they cannot avoid it. 

If the Roman, or the man of mediaeval times, or the 
average Russian of fifty years ago, as I remember him, was 
convinced without a shade of doubt that the violence of 
authority was indispensable to preserve him from evil ; that 
taxes, dues, serfage, prisons, scourging, knouts, executions, 
the army and war were what ought to be — we know now 
that one can seldom find a man who believes that all these 



IS wiTHm Your 191 

\ means of violence preserve anyone from any evil whatever, 
\and indeed does not clearly perceive that most of these 
acts of violence to which he is exposed, and in which he 
has some share, are in themselves a great and useless evil. 
There is no one to-day who does not see the uselessness 
and injustice of collecting taxes from the toiling masses 
to enrich idle officials ; or the senselessness of inflicting 
punishments on weak or depraved persons in the shape of 
transportation from one place to another, or of imprison- 
ment in a fortress where, living in security and indolence, 
they only become weaker and more depraved ; or the worse 
than uselessness and injustice, the positive insanity and 
barbarity of preparations for war and of "^"wafs, causing 
devastation and ruin, and having no kind of justification. 
Yet these forms of violence continue and are supported by 
the very people who see their uselessness, injustice, and 
cruelty, and suffer from them. If fifty years ago the idle 
rich man and the illiterate laborer were both alike con- 
vinced that their state of everlasting holiday for one and 
everlasting toil for the other was ordained by God himself, 
we know very well that nowadays, thanks to the growth of 
population and the diffusion of books and education, it 
would be hard to find in Europe or even in Russia, either 
among rich or poor, a man to whom in one shape or another 
a doubt as to the justice of this state of things had never 
presented itself. The rich know that they are guilty in the 
very fact of being rich, and try to expiate their guilt by 
sacrifices to art and science, as of old they expiated their 
sins by sacrifices to the Church. And even the larger half 
of the working people openly declare that the existing 
order is iniquitous and bound to be destroyed or reformed. 
One set of religious people of whom there are millions in 
Russia, the so-called sectaries, consider the existing social 
order as unjust and to be destroyed on the ground of the 
Gospel teaching taken in its true sense. Others regard it 



V 



192 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

as unjust on the ground of the socialistic, communistic, or 
anarchistic theories, which are springing up in the lower 
strata of the working people. Violence no longer rests on 
the belief in its utility, but only on the fact of its having 
existed so long, and being organized by the ruling classes 
who profit by it, so that those who are under their authority 
cannot extricate themselves from it. The governments of 
our day — all of them, the most despotic and the liberal 
alike — have become what Herzen so well called "' Ghenghis 
Khan with the telegraph ; " that is to say, organizations of 
violence based on no principle but the grossest tyranny, 
and at the same time taking advantage of all the means 
invented by science for the peaceful collective social 
^ activity of free and equal men, used by them to enslave 
and oppress their fellows. 

Governments and the ruling classes no longer take their 
stand on right or even on the semblance of justice, but on 
a skillful organization carried to such a point of perfection 
by the aid of science that everyone is caught in the circle 
of violence and has no chance of escaping from it. This 
circle is made up now of four methods of working upon 
men, joined together like the links of a chain ring. 

The first and oldest method is intimidation. This con- 
sists in representing the existing state organization — what- 
ever it may be, free republic or the most savage des- 
potism — as something sacred and immutable, and therefore 
following any efforts to alter it with the cruellest punish- 
ments. This method is in use now — as it has been from 
olden times — wherever there is a government : in Russia 
against the so-called Nihilists, in America against Anarch- 
ists, in France against Imperialists, Legitimists, Com- 
munards, and Anarchists. 

Railways, telegraphs, telephones, photographs, and the 
great perfection of the means of getting rid of men for 
years, without killing them, by solitary confinement, where, 



IS WITHIN your 193 

hidden from the world, they perish and are forgotten, and 
the many other modern inventions employed by govern- 
ment, give such power that when once authority has come 
into certain hands, the police, open and secret, the admin- 
istration and prosecutors, jailers and executioners of all 
kinds, do their work so zealously that there is no chance of 
overturning the government, however cruel and senseless it 
may be. 

The second method is corruption. It consists in plun- 
dering the industrious working people of their wealth by 
means of taxes and distributing it in satisfying the greed of 
officials, who are bound in return to support and keep up 
the oppression of the people. These bought officials, from 
the highest ministers to the poorest copying clerks, make 
up an unbroken network of men bound together by the 
same interest — that of living at the expense of the people. 
They become the richer the more submissively they carry 
out the will of the government ; and at all times and places, 
sticking at nothing, in all departments support by word and 
deed the violence of government, on which their own pros- 
perity also rests. 

The third method is what I can only describe as hypno- 
tizing the people. This consists in checking the moral 
development of men, and by various suggestions keeping 
them back in the ideal of life, outgrown by mankind at 
large, on which the power of government rests. This 
hypnotizing process is organized at the present in the most 
complex manner, and starting from their earliest childhood, 
continues to act on men till the day of their death. It 
begins in their earliest years in the compulsory schools, 
created for this purpose, in which the children have in- 
stilled into them the ideas of life of their ancestors, which 
are in direct antagonism with the conscience of the modern 
world. In countries where there is a state religion, they 
teach the children the senseless blasphemies of the Church 



194 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

catechisms, together with the duty of obedience to their 
superiors. In republican states they teach them the savage 
superstition of patriotism and the same pretended obedi- 
ence to the governing authorities. 

The process is kept up during later years by the en- 
couragement of religious and patriotic superstitions. 

The religious superstition is encouraged by establish- 
ing, with money taken from the people, temples, proces- 
sions, memorials, and festivals, which, aided by painting, 
architecture, music, and incense, intoxicate the people, and 
above all by the support of the clergy^ whose duty consists 
in brutalizing the people and keeping them in a permanent 
state of stupefaction by their teaching, the solemnity of 
their services, their sermons, and their interference in pri- 
vate life— at births, deaths, and marriages. The patriotic 
superstition is encouraged by the creation, with money 
taken from the people, of national fetes, spectacles, monu- 
ments, and festivals to dispose men to attach importance to 
their own nation, and to the aggrandizement of the state and 
jits rulers, and to feel antagonism and even hatred for other 
nations. With these objects under despotic governments 
there is direct prohibition against printing and disseminat- 
ing books to enlighten the people, and everyone who might 
rouse the people from their lethargy is exiled or imprisoned. 
Moreover, under every government without exception 
everything is kept back that might emancipate and every- 
thing encouraged that tends to corrupt the people, such as 
literary works tending to keep them in the barbarism of 
religious and patriotic superstition, all kinds of sensual 
amusements, spectacles, circuses, theaters, and even the 
physical means of inducing stupefaction, as tobacco and 
alcohol, which form the principal source of revenue of 
states. Even prostitution is encouraged, and not only 
recognized, but even organized by the government in the 
majority of states. So much for the third method. 



IS WITHIN Your 1 95 

The fourth method consists in selecting from all the men 
who have been stupefied and enslaved by the three former 
methods a certain number, exposing them to special and 
intensified means of stupefaction and brutalization, and so 
making them into a passive instrument for carrying out all 
the cruelties and brutalities needed by the government. 
This result is attained by taking them at the youthful age 
when men have not had time to form clear and definite 
jprinciples of morals, and removing them from all natural 
*/and human conditions of life, home, family and kindred, 
and useful labor. They are shut up together in barracks, 
dressed in special clothes, and worked upon by cries, drums,/ 
music, and shining objects to go through certain daily / 
actions invented for this purpose, and by this means are ' 
brought into an hypnotic condition in which they cease to 
be men and become mere senseless machines, submissive 
to the hypnotizen These physically vigorous young men 
(in these days of universal conscription, all young men), 
hypnotized, armed with murderous weapons, always 
obedient to the governing authorities and ready for any 
act of violence at their command, constitute the fourth and 
principal method of enslaving men. 

By this method the circle of violence is completed. 

Intimidation, corruption, and hypnotizing bring people 
into a condition in which they are willing to be soldiers ; 
the soldiers give the power of punishing and plundering 
them (and purchasing officials with the spoils), and hyp- 
notizing them and converting them in time into these 
same soldiers again. 

The circle is complete, and there is no chance of break- 
ing through it by force. 

Some persons maintain that freedom from violence, or 
at least a great diminution of it, may be gained by the 
oppressed forcibly overturning the oppressive government 
and replacing it by a new one under which such violence 



196 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

and oppression will be unnecessary, but they deceive them- 
selves and others, and their efforts do not better the posi- 
tion of the oppressed, but only make it worse. Their con- 
duct only tends to increase the despotism of government. 
Their efforts only afford a plausible pretext for government 
to strengthen their power. 

Even if we admit that under a combination of circum- 
stances specially unfavorable for the government, as in 
France in 1870, any government might be forcibly over- 
turned and the power transferred to other hands, the new 
authority would rarely be less oppressive than the old one ; 
on the contrary, always having to defend itself against its 
dispossessed and exasperated enemies, it would be more 
despotic and cruel, as has always been the rule in all 
revolutions. 

While socialists and communists regard the individual- 
istic, capitalistic organization of society as an evil, and the 
anarchists regard as an evil all government whatever, there 
are royalists, conservatives, and capitalists who consider 
any socialistic or communistic organization or anarchy as 
an evil, and all these parties have no means other than 
violence to bring men to agreement. Whichever of these 
parties were successful in bringing their schemes to pass, 
must resort to support its authority to all the existing 
methods of violence, and even invent new ones. 

The oppressed would be another set of people, and 
coercion would take some new form ; but the violence and 
oppression would be unchanged or even more cruel, since 
hatred would be intensified by the struggle, and new forms 
of oppression would have been devised. So it has always 
been after all revolutions and all attempts at revolution, all 
conspiracies, and all violent changes of government. 
Every conflict only strengthens the means of oppression in 
the hands of those who happen at a given moment to be in 
power. 



/S WITHIN Your 197 

The position of our Christian society, and especially the 
ideals most current in it, prove this in a strikingly convinc; 
ing way. 

There remains now only one sphere of human life not 
encroached upon by government authority — that is the 
domestic, economic sphere, the sphere of private life and 
labor. And even this is now — thanks to the efforts of com- 
munists and socialists — being gradually encroached upon 
by government, so that labor and recreation, dwellings, 
dress, and food will gradually, if the hopes of the reformers 
are successful, be prescribed and regulated by government. 

The slow progress of eighteen centuries has brought the 
Christian nations again to the necessity of deciding the 
question they have evaded — the question of the acceptance 
or non-acceptance of Christ's teaching, and the question 
following upon it in social life of resistance or non-resist- 
ance to evil by force. But there is this difference, that i 
whereas formerly men could accept or refuse to accept the 1 
solution given by Christ, now that solution cannot be 
avoided, since it alone can save men from the slavery in 
which they are caught like a net. 

But it is not only the misery of the position which makes 
this inevitable. 

While the pagan organization has been proved more and 
more false, the truth of the Christian religion has been 
growing more and more evident. 

Not in vain have the best men of Christian humanity, 
who apprehended the truth by spiritual intuition, for 
eighteen centuries testified to it in spite of every menace, 
every privation, and every suffering. By their martyrdom 
they passed on the truth to the masses, and impressed it on 
their hearts. 

Christianity has penetrated into the consciousness of 
humanity, not only negatively by the demonstration of the 
impossibility of continuing in the pagan life, but also 



198 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

through its simplification, its increased clearness and free- 
dom from the superstitions intermingled with it, and its 
diffusion through all classes of the population. 

Eighteen centuries of Christianity have not passed with- 
out an effect even on those who accepted it only externally. 
These eighteen centuries have brought men so far that even 
while they continue to live the pagan life which is no longer 
consistent with the development of humanity, they not only 
see clearly all the wretchedness of their position, but in 
the depths of their souls they believe (they can only live 
through this belief) that the only salvation from this posi- 
tion is to be found in fulfilling the Christian doctrine in its 
true significance. As to the time and manner of salvation, 
opinions are divided according to the intellectual develop- 
ment and the prejudices of each society. But every man 
of the modern world recognizes that our salvation lies in 
fulfilling the law of Christ. Some believers in the super- 
natural character of Christianity hold that salvation will 
come when all men are brought to believe in Christ, whose 
second coming is at hand. Other believers in supernatural 
Christianity hold that salvation ' will come through the 
Church, which will draw all men into its fold, train them in 
the Christian virtues, and transform their life. A third 
section, who do not admit the divinity of Christ, hold that 
the salvation of mankind will be brought about by slow 
and gradual progress, through which the pagan principles 
^of our existence will be replaced by the principles of liberty, 
equality, and fraternity — that is, by Christian principles. 
A fourth section, who believe in the sodaT revolution, hold 
that salvation will come when through a violent revolution 
men are forced into community of property, abolition of 
government, and collective instead of individual industry — 
that is to say, the realization of one side of the Christian 
doctrine. In one way or another all men of our day in 
their inner consciousness condemn the existing effete 



IS WITHIN Your 199 

pagan order, and admit, often unconsciously and while 
regarding themselves as hostile to Christianit}^ that our 
salvation is only to be found in the application of the Chris- y 
tian doctrine, or parts of it, in its true significance to our 
daily life. 

Christianity cannot, as its Founder said, be realized by 
the majority of men all at once ; it must grow like a huge 
tree from a tiny seed. And so it has grown, and now has 
reached its full development, not yet in actual life, but in 
the conscience of men of to-day. 

Now not only the minority, who have always compre- 
hended Christianity by spiritual intuition, but all the vast 
majority who seem so far from it in their social existence 
recognize its true significance. 

Look at individual men in their private life, listen to their 
standards of conduct in their judgment of one another; 
hear not only their public utterances, but the counsels 
given by parents and guardians to the young in their 
charge ; and you will see that, far as their social life based 
on violence may be from realizing Christian truth, in their 
private life what is considered good by all without excep- 
tion^is nothing but the Christian virtues ; what is con- 
sidered as bad is nothing but the antichristian vices. 
Those who consecrate their lives self-sacrificingly to the 
service of humanity are regarded as the best men. The 
selfish, who make use of the misfortunes of others for their 
own advantage, are regarded as the worst of men. 

Though some non-Christian ideals, such as strength, 
courage, and wealth, are still worshiped by a few who have 
not been penetrated by the Christian spirit, these ideals 
are out of date and are abandoned, if not by all, at least 
by all those regarded as the best people. There are no 
ideals, other than the Christian ideals, which are accepted 
by all and regarded as binding on all. 

The j>psition of our Christian humanity, if you look at it 



200 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

from the outside with all its cruelty and degradation of 
men, is terrible indeed. But if one looks at it within, in its 
inner consciousness, the spectacle it presents is absolutely 
different. 

All the evil of our life seems to exist only because it has 
been so for so long ; those who do the evil have not had 
time yet to learn how to act otherwise, though they do not 
want to act as they do. 

All the evil seems to exist through some cause inde- 
pendent of the conscience of men. 

Strange and contradictory as it seems, all men of the 
present day hate the very social order they are themselves 
supporting. 

I think it is Max Miiller who describes the amazement of 
an Indian convert to Christianity, who after absorbing the 
essence of the Christian doctrine came to Europe and saw 
the actual life of Christians. He could not recover from 
his astonishment at the complete contrast between the 
reality and what he had expected to find among Christian 
nations. If we feel no astonishment at the contrast between 
our convictions and our conduct, that is because the influ- 
ences, tending to obscure the contrast, produce an effect 
upon us too. We need only look at our life from the point 
of view of that Indian, who understood Christianity in its 
true significance, without any compromises or concessions, 
we need but look at the savage brutalities of which our life 
is full, to be appalled at the contradictions in the midst of 
which we live often without observing them. 

AVe need only recall the preparations for war, the mitrail- 
leuses, the silver-gilt bullets, the torpedoes, and — the Red 
Cross ; the solitary prison cells, the experiments of execu- 
tion by electricity-— and the care of the hygienic welfare of 
prisoners ; the philanthropy of the rich, and their life, 
which produces the poor they are benefiting. 

And these inconsistencies are not, as it might seem, 



IS WITHIN Your 20 1 

because men pretend to be Christians while they are really 
pagans, but because of something lacking in men, or some 
kind of force hindering them from being what they already 
feel themselves to be in their consciousness, and what they 
genuinely wish to be. Men of the present day do not 
merely pretend to hate oppression, inequality, class dis- 
tinction, and every kind of cruelty to animals as well as 
human beings. They genuinely detest all this, but they do 
not know how to put a stop to it, or perhaps cannot decide 
to give up what preserves it all, and seems to them 
necessary. 

Indeed, ask every man separately whether he thinks it 
laudable and worthy of a man of this age to hold a position 
from which he receives a salary disproportionate to his 
work ; to take from the people — often in poverty — taxes to 
be spent on constructing cannon, torpedoes, and other 
instruments of butchery, so as to make war on people with 
whom we wish to be at peace, and who feel the same wish 
in regard to us ; or to receive a salary for devoting one's 
whole life to constructing these instruments of butchery, or 
to preparing oneself and others for the work of murder. 
And ask him whether it is laudable and worthy of a man, 
and suitable for a Christian, to employ himself, for a salary, 
in seizing wretched, misguided, often illiterate and drunken, 
creatures because they appropriate the property of others — 
on a much smaller scale than we do — or because they kill 
men in a different fashion from that in which we undertake 
to do it — and shutting them in prison for it, ill treating 
them and killing them ; and whether it is laudable and 
worthy of a man and a Christian to preach for a salary to 
the people not Christianity, but superstitions which one 
knows to be stupid and pernicious ; and whether it is 
laudable and worthy of a man to rob his neighbor for his 
gratification of what he wants to satisfy his simplest needs, 
as the great landowners do ; or to force him to exhaust- 



202 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

ing labor beyond his strength to augment one's wealth, as 
do factory owners and manufacturers ; or to profit by the 
poverty of men to increase one's gains, as merchants do. 
And everyone taken separately, especially if one's remarks 
are directed at someone else, not himself, will answer, No ! 
And yet the very man who sees all the baseness of those 
actions, of his own free will, uncoerced by anyone, often 
even for no pecuniary profit, but only from childish vanity, 
for a china cross, a scrap of ribbon, a bit of fringe he is 
allowed to wear, will enter military service, become a 
magistrate or justice of the peace, commissioner, arch- 
"^bishop, or beadle, though in fulfilling these offices he must 
commit acts the baseness and shamefulness of which he 
cannot fail to recognize. 

I know that many of these men will confidently try to 
prove that they have reasons for regarding their position 
as legitimate and quite indispensable. They will say in 
their defense that authority is given by God, that the 
functions of the state are indispensable for the welfare of 
humanity, that property is not opposed to Christianity,- 
that the rich young man was only commanded to sell all 
he had and give to the poor if he wished to be perfect, 
'that the existing distribution of property and our commer- 
cial system must always remain as they are, and are to the 
advantage of all, and so on. But, however much they try 
to deceive themselves and others, they all know that what 
they are doing is opposed to all the beliefs which they pro- 
fess, and in the depths of their souls, when they are left 
alone with their conscience, they are ashamed and miser- 
able at the recollection of it, especially if the baseness of 
their action has been pointed out to them. A man of the 
present day, whether he believes in the divinity of Christ 
or not, cannot fail to see that to assist in the capacity of 
tzar, minister, governor, or commissioner in taking from a 
poor family its last cow for taxes to be spent on cannons^ 



IS WITHIN Your ^0^ 

or on the pay and pensions of idle officials, who live in 
luxury and are worse than useless ; or in putting into 
prison some man we have ourselves corrupted, and throw- 
ing his family on the streets ; or in plundering and 
butchering in war ; or in inculcating savage and idolatrous 
superstitions in the place of the law of Christ ; or in 
impounding the cow found on one's land, though it belongs 
to a man who has no land ; or to cheat the workman in a 
factory, by imposing fines for accidentally spoiled articles ; 
or making a poor man pay double the value for anything 
simply because he is in the direst poverty ; — not a man of 
the present day can fail to know that all these actions are 
base and disgraceful, and that they need not do them. 
They all know it. They know that what they are doing is 
wrong, and would not do it for anything in the world if 
they had the power of resisting the forces which shut their 
eyes to the criminality of their actions and impel them to 
commit them. 

In nothing is the pitch of inconsistency modern life has 
/attained to so evident as in universal conscription, which is 
the last resource and the final expression of violence. 

Indeed, it is only because this state of universal arma- 
ment has been brought about gradually and imperceptibly, 
and because governments have exerted, in maintaining it, 
every resource of intimidation, corruption, brutalization, and 
violence, that we do not see its flagrant inconsistency with 
the Christian ideas and sentiments by which the modern 
world is permeated. 

We are so accustomed to the inconsistency that we do 
not see all the hideous folly and immorality of men volun- 
tarily choosing the profession of butchery as though it were 
an honorabte career, of poor wretches submitting to con- 
scription, or in countries where compulsory service has not 
been introduced, of people voluntarily abandoning a life of 
industry to recruit soldiers and train them as murderers. 



204 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

We know that all of these men are either Christians, or pro- 
fess humane and liberal principles, and they know that they 
thus become partly responsible — through universal conscrip- 
tion, personally responsible — for the most insane, aimless, 
and brutal murders. And yet they all do it. 

More than that, in Germany, where compulsory service 
first orginated, Caprivi has given expression to what had 
been hitherto so assiduously concealed — that is, that the 
men that the soldiers will have to kill are not foreigners 
alone, but their own countrymen, the very working people 
from whom they themselves are taken. And this admission 
has not opened people's eyes, has not horrified them ! They 
still go like sheep to the slaughter, and submit to every- 
thing required of them. 

And that is not all : the Emperor of Germany has lately 
shown still more clearly the duties of the army, by thank- 
ing and rewarding a soldier for killing a defenseless citizen 
who made his approach incautiously. By rewarding an 
action always regarded as base and cowardly even by men 
on the lowest level of morality, William has shown that 
a soldier's chief duty — the one most appreciated by the 
authorities — is that of executioner ; and not a professional 
executioner who kills only condemned criminals, but one 
ready to butcher any innocent man at the word of com- 
mand. 

And even that is not all. In 1892, the same William, 
the enfant terrible of state authority, who says plainly what 
other people only think, in addressing some soldiers gave 
public utterance to the following speech, which was 
reported next day in thousands of newspapers : ** Con- 
scripts ! " he said, ** you have sworn fidelity to me before 
the altar and the minister of God ! You *are still too 
young to understand all the importance of what has been 
said here ; let your care before all things be to obey the 
orders and instructions given you. You have sworn 



IS WITHIN you:' 205 

fidelity to me, lads of my guard ; that means that you are 
now my soldiers , th3.t you have given yourselves to me body and 
soul. For you there is now but one enemy, 7ny enemy. / 
I I 71 these days of socialistic sedition it may come to pass that] 
\ I com?nand you to fire on your own kindred, your brothers^ 
\ even your own fathers and mothers — which God forbid I — 
even then you are bound to obey my orders without j 
.hesitation." 

This man expresses what all sensible rulers think, but 
studiously conceal. He says openly that the soldiers are 
i/in his service, at his disposal, and must be ready for his 
advantage to murder even their brothers and fathers. 

In the most brutal words he frankly exposes all the 
horrors and criminality for which men prepare themselves 
in entering the army, and the depths of ignominy to which 
they fall in promising obedience. Like a bold hypnotizer, 
he tests the degree of insensibility of the hypnotized sub- 
ject. He touches his skin with a red-hot iron ; the skin 
smokes and scorches, but the sleeper does not awake. 

This miserable man, imbecile and drunk with power, 
' outrages in this utterance everything that can be sacred 
for a man of the modern world. And yet all the Chris- 
tians, liberals, and cultivated people, far from resenting 
this outrage, did not even observe it. 

The last, the most extreme test is put before men in its 
coarsest form. And they do not seem even to notice that 
it is a test, that there is any choice about it. They seem 
to think there is no course open but slavish submission. 
One would have thought these insane words, which out- 
rage everything a man of the present day holds sacred, 
must rouse indignation. But there has been nothing of 
the kind. 

All the young men through the whole of Europe are ex- 
posed year after year to this test, and with very few excep- 
tions they renounce all that a man can hold sacred, all 



2o6 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

express their readiness to kill their brothers, even their 
fathers, at the bidding of the first crazy creature dressed 
up in a livery with red and gold trimming, and only wait 
to be told where and when they are to kill. And they ac- 
tually are ready. 

Every savage has something he holds sacred, something 
for which he is ready to suffer, something he will not con- 
sent to do. But what is it that is sacred to the civilized 
man of to-day ? They say to him : *^ You must become 
my slave, and this slavery may force you to kill even your 
own father ; '* and he, often very well educated, trained in 
all the sciences at the university, quietly puts his head 
under the yoke. They dress him up in a clown's costume, 
and order him to cut capers, turn and twist and bow, and 
kill — he does it all submissively. And when they let him 
go, he seems to shake himself and go back to his former 
life, and he continues to discourse upon the dignity of man, 
liberty, equality, and fraternity as before. 

"Yes, but what is one to do ? ** people often ask in gen- 
uine perplexity. " If everyone would stand out it would 
be something, but by myself, I shall only suffer without 
doing any good to anyone." 

And that is true. A man with the social conception of 
life cannot resist. The aim of his life is his personal wel- 
fare. It is better for his personal welfare for him to submit, 
and he submits. 

Whatever they do to him, however they torture or hu- 
miliate him, he will submit, for, alone, he can do nothing ; 
he has no principle for the sake of which he could resist 
violence alone. And those who control them never allow 
them to unite together. It is often said that the invention 
of terrible weapons of destruction will put an end to war. 
That is an error. As the means of extermination are im- 
proved, the means of reducing men who hold the state 
conception of life to submission can be improved to cor- 



/S WITHIN YOUr 207 

respond. They may slaughter them by thousands, by 
millions, they may tear them to pieces, still they will march 
to war like senseless cattle. Some will want beating to 
make them move, others will be proud to go if they are 
allowed to wear a scrap of ribbon or gold lace. 

And of this mass of men so brutalized as to be ready to 
f promise to kill their own parents, the social reformers — 
conservatives, liberals, socialists, and anarchists — propose 
to form a rational and moral society. What sort of moral 
and rational society can be formed out of such elements? 
With warped and rotten planks you cannot build a house, 
however you put them together. And to form a rational 
moral society of such men is just as impossible a task. 
They can be formed into nothing but a herd of cattle, 
driven by the shouts and whips of the herdsmen. As in- 
deed they are. 

So, then, we have on one side men calling themselves 
Christians, and professing the principles of liberty, equality, 
and fraternity, and along with that ready, in the name of 
liberty, to submit to the most slavish degradation ; in the 
name of equality, to accept the crudest, most senseless 
division of men by externals merely into higher and lower 
classes, allies and enemies ; and, in the name of fraternity, 
ready to murder their brothers.* 

The contradiction between life and conscience and the 
misery resulting from it have reached the extreme limit and 
can go no further. The state organization of life based on 
violence, the aim of which was the security of personal, 
family, and social welfare, has come to the point of renounc- 

* The fact that among certain nations, as the English and the Ameri- 
can, military service is not compulsory (though already one hears there 
are some who advocate that it should be made so) does not affect the 
servility of the citizens to the government in principle. Here we have 
each to go and kill or be killed, there they have each to give the fruit 
of their toil to pay for the recruiting and training of soldiers. 



2o8 '' THE KINGDOM OP GOD 

ing the very objects for which it was founded — it has 
reduced men to absolute renunciation and loss of the 
welfare it was to secure. 

The first half of the prophecy has been fulfilled in the 
generation of men who have not accepted Christ's teaching, 
Their descendants have been brought now to the absolute 
necessity of putting the truth of the second half to the test 
of experience. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF LIFE 
WILL EMANCIPATE MEN FROM THE MISERIES OF OUR 
PAGAN LIFE. 

The External Life of Christian Peoples Remains Pagan Though they are 
Penetrated by Christian Consciousness — The Way Out of this Contra- 
diction is by the Acceptance of the Christian Theory of Life — Only 
Through Christianity is Every Man Free, and Emancipated of All 
Human Authority — This Emancipation can be Effected by no Change 
in External Conditions of Life, but Only by a Change in the Concep- 
tion of Life — The Christian Ideal of Life Requires Renunciation of 
all Violence, and in Emancipating the Man who Accepts it, Emanci- 
pates the Whole World from All External Authorities — The Way 
Out of the Present Apparently Hopeless Position is for Every Man 
who is Capable of Assimilating the Christian Conception of Life, to 
Accept it and Live in Accordance with it — But Men Consider this 

- Way too Slow, and Look for Deliverance Through Changes in Material 
Conditions of Life Aided by Government — That Will Lead to No 
Improvement, as it is simply Increasing the Evil under which Men 
are Suffering — A Striking Instance of this is the Submission to Com- 
pulsory Military Service, which it would be More Advantageous for 
Every Man to Refuse than to Submit to — The Emancipation of Men 
Can Only be Brought About by each Individual Emancipating Himself , 
and the Examples of this Self-emancipation which are already Appear- 
ing Threaten the Destruction of Governmental Authority — Refusal to 
Comply with the Unchristian Demands of Government Undermines the 
Authority of the State and Emancipates Men — And therefore Cases 



/s wiTHm you:' ^09 

of such Non-compliance are Regarded with more Dread by State 
Authorities than any Conspiracies or Acts of Violence — Examples of 
Non-compliance in Russia, in Regard to Oath of Allegiance, Pay- 
ment of Taxes, Passports, Police Duties, and Military Service — 
Examples of such Non-compliance in other States— Governments do 
not Know how to Treat Men who Refuse to Comply with their 
Demands on Christian Grounds — Such People, without Striking a 
Blow, Undermine the very Basis of Government from Within — To 
Punish them is Equivalent to Openly Renouncing Christianity, and 
Assisting in Diffusing the Very Principle by which these Men Justify 
their Non-compliance — So Governments are in a Helpless Position — 
Men who Maintain the Uselessness of Personal Independence, only 
Retard the Dissolution of the Present State Organization Based on 
Force. 

The position of the Christian peoples in our days has 
remained just as cruel as it was in the times of paganism. 
In many respects, especially in the oppression of the masses, 
it has become even more cruel than it was in the days of 
paganism. 

But between the condition of men in ancient times and 
their condition in our days there is just the difference that 
we see in the world of vegetation between the last days of 
autumn and the first days of spring. In the autumn the 
external lifelessness in nature corresponds with its inward 
condition of death, while in the spring the external lifeless- 
ness is in sharp contrast with the internal state of reviving 
and passing into new forms of life. 

In the same way the similarity between the ancient 
heathen life and the life of to-day is merely external : the 
inward condition of men in the times of heathenism was 
absolutely different from their inward condition at the 
present time. 

Then the outward condition of cruelty and of slavery 
was in complete harmony with the inner conscience of men, 
and every step in advance intensified this harmony ; now 
the outward condition of cruelty and of slavery is com- 



^tO ^' T//£ KINGDOM OF GOD 

pletely contradictory to the Christian consciousness of men, 
and every step in advance only intensifies this contradic- 
tion. 

Humanity is passing through seemingly unnecessary, 
fruitless agonies. It is passing through something like the 
throes of birth. Everything is ready for the new life, but 
still the new life does not come. 

There seems no way out of the position. And there 
would be none, except that a man (and thereby all men) is 
gifted with the power of forming a different, higher theory 
of life, which at once frees him from all the bonds by 
which he seems indissolubly fettered. 

And such a theory is the Christian view of life made 
known to mankind eighteen hundred years ago. 

A man need only make this theory of life his own, for 
the fetters which seemed so indissolubly forged upon him 
to drop off of themselves, and for him to feel himself abso- 
lutely free, just as a bird would feel itself free in a fenced- 
in place directly it took to its wings. 

People talk about the liberty of the Christian Church, 
about giving or not giving freedom to Christians. Under- 
lying all these ideas and expressions there is some strange 
misconception. Freedom cannot be bestowed on or taken 
from a Christian or Christians. Freedom is an inalienable 
possession of the Christian. 

If we talk of bestowing freedom on Christians or with- 
holding it from them, we are obviously talking not of real 
Christians but of people who only call themselves Chris- 
tians. A Christian cannot fail to be free, because the 
attainment of the aim he sets before himself cannot be pre- 
vented or even hindered by anyone or anything. 

Let a man only understand his life as Christianity 
teaches him to understand it, let him understand, that is, 
that his life belongs not to him — not to his own individual- 
ity, nor to his family, nor to the state — but to him who 



IS WITHIN you:' 211 

has sent him into the world, and let him once understand 
that he must therefore fulfill not the law of his own indi- 
viduality, nor his family, nor of the state, but the infinite 
law of him from whom he has come ; and he will not only 
feel himself absolutely free from every human power, but 
will even cease to regard such power as at all able to 
hamper anyone. 

Let a man but realize that the aim of his life is the fulfill- 
ment of God's law, and that law will replace all other laws 
for him, and he will give it his sole allegiance, so that by 
that very allegiance every human law will lose all binding 
and controlling power in his eyes. 

The Christian is independent of every human authority 
by the fact that he regards the divine law of love, implanted 
in the soul of every man, and brought before his conscious- 
ness by Christ, as the sole guide of his life and other men's 
also. 

The Christian may be subjected to external violence, he 
may be deprived of bodily freedom, he may be in bondage 
to his passions (he who commits sin is the slave of sin), 
but he cannot be in bondage in the sense of being forced 
by any danger or by any threat of external harm to perform 
an act which is against his conscience. 

He cannot be compelled to do this, because the depriva- 
tions and sufferings which form such a powerful weapon 
against men of the state conception of life, have not the 
least power to compel him. 

Deprivations and sufferings take from them the happi- 
ness for which they live ; but far from disturbing the 
happiness of the Christian, which consists in the conscious- 
ness of fulfilling the will of God, they may even intensify 
it, when they are inflicted on him for fulfilling his will. 

And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the 
inner divine law, not only cannot carry out the enactments 
q{ the external law, when they are not in agreement with 



212 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

the divine law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually 
the case with state obligations), he cannot even recognize 
the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he 
V cannot recognize the duty of what is called allegiance. 

For a Christian the oath of allegiance to any govern- 
ment whatever — the very act which is regarded as the 
foundation of the existence of a state — is a direct renuncia- 
tion of Christianity. For the man who promises uncon- 
ditional obedience in the future to laws, made or to be 
made, by that very promise is in the most positive manner 
renouncing Christianity, which means obeying in every cir- 
cumstance of life only the divine law of love he recognizes 
within him. 

Under the pagan conception of life it was possible to 
carry out the will of the temporal authorities, without 
infringing the law of God expressed in circumcisions, 
Sabbaths, fixed times of prayer, abstention from certain 
kinds of food, and so on. The one law was not opposed 
to the other. But that is just the distinction between the 
Christian religion and heathen religion. Christianity does 
not require of a man certain definite negative acts, but puts 
him in a new, different relation to men, from which may 
result the most diverse acts, which cannot be defined 
beforehand. And therefore the Christian not only cannot 
promise to obey the will of any other man, without know- 
ing what will be required by that will ; he not only cannot 
obey the changing laws of man, but he cannot even promise 
to do anything definite at a certain time, or to abstain 
from doing anything for a certain time. For he cannot 
know what at any time will be required of him by that 
Christian law of love, obedience to which constitutes the 
meaning of life for him. The Christian, in promising 
unconditional fulfillment of the laws of men in the future, 
would show plainly by that promise that the inner law of 
God does not constitute for hini the sole law of his life. 



IS WITHIN Your 213 

For a Christian to promise obedience to men, or the laws 
of men, is just as though a workman bound to one em- 
ployer should also promise to carry out every order that 
might be given him by outsiders. One cannot serve two 
masters. 

The Christian is independent of human authority, be- 
cause he acknowledges God's authority alone. His law, 
revealed by Christ, he recognizes in himself, and voluntarily 
obeys it. 

And this independence is gained, not by means of strife, 
not by the destruction of existing forms of life, but only by 
a change in the interpretation of life. This independence 
results first from the Christian recognizing the law of love, 
revealed to him by his teacher, as perfectly sufficient for 
all human relations, and therefore he regards every use of 
force as unnecessary and unlawful ; and secondly, from the 
fact that those deprivations and sufferings, or threats of 
deprivations and sufferings (which reduce the man of the 
social conception of life to the necessity of obeying) to the 
Christian from his different conception of life, present them- 
selves merely as the inevitable conditions of existence. 
And these conditions, without striving against them by force, 
he patiently endures, like sickness, hunger, and every other 
hardship, but they cannot serve him as a guide for his 
actions. The only guide for the Christian's actions is to be 
found in the divine principle living within him, which can- 
not be checked or governed by anything. 

The Christian acts according to the words of the prophecy 
applied to his teacher: '' He shall not strive, nor cry; neither 
shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed 
shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till 
he send forth judgment unto victory." (Matt. xii. 19, 20.) 
r The Christian will not dispute with anyone, nor attack 
anyone, nor use violence against anyone. On the con- 
trary, he will bear violence without opposing it. But by 



214 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

this very attitude to violence, he will not only himself be 
free, but will free the whole world from all external power. 

*^ Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free." If there were any doubt of Christianity being the 
truth, the perfect liberty, that nothing can curtail, which a 
man experiences directly he makes the Christian theory of 
life his own, would be an unmistakable proof of its truth. 

Men in their present condition are like a swarm of bees 
hanging in a cluster to a branch. The position of the bees 
on the branch is temporary, and must inevitably be changed. 
They must start off and find themselves a habitation. Each 
of the bees knows this, and desires to change her own and 
the others' position, but no one of them can do it till the 
rest of them do it. They cannot all start off at once, be- 
cause one hangs on to another and hinders her from 
separating from the swarm, and therefore they all continue 
to hang there. It would seem that the bees could never 
escape from their position, just as it seems that worldly 
men, caught in the toils of the state conception of life, can 
never escape. And there would be no escape for the bees, 
if each of them were not a living, separate creature, en- 
dowed with wings of its own. Similarly there would be no 
escape for men, if each were not a living being endowed 
with the faculty of entering into the Christian conception 
of life. 

If every bee who could fly, did not try to fly, the others, 
too, would never be stirred, and the swarm would never 
change its position. And if the man who has mastered 
the Christian conception of life would not, without waiting 
for other people, begin to live in accordance with this con- 
ception, mankind would never change its position. But 
only let one bee spread her wings, start off, and fly away, 
and after her another, and another, and the clinging, inert 
cluster would become a freely flying swarm of bees. Just 
in the same way, only let one man look at life as Chris- 



IS WITHIN Your 215 

tianity teaches him to look at it, and after him let another 
and another do the same, and the enchanted circle of exist- 
ence in the state conception of life, from which there 
seemed no escape, will be broken through. 

But men think that to set all men free by this means is 
too slow a process, that they must find some other means 
by which they could set all men free at once. It is just as 
though the bees who want to start and fly away should 
consider it too long a process to wait for all the swarm to 
start one by one ; and should think they ought to find 
some means by which it would not be necessary for every 
separate bee to spread her wings and fly off, but by which 
the whole swarm could fly at once where it wanted to. But 
that is not possible ; till a first, a second, a third, a hun- 
dredth bee spreads her wings and flies off of her own 
accord, the swarm will not fly off and will not begin its 
new life. Till every individual man makes the Christian 
conception of life his own, and begins to live in accord with 
it, there can be no solution of the problem of human life, 
and no establishment of a new form of life. 

One of the most striking phenomena of our times is pre- 
cisely this advocacy of slavery, which is promulgated among 
the masses, not by governments, in whom it is inevitable, 
but by men who, in advocating socialistic theories, regard 
themselves as the champions of freedom. 

These people advance the opinion that the amelioration 
of life, the bringing of the facts of life into harmony with 
the conscience, will come, not as the result of the personal 
efforts of individual men, but of itself as the result of a 
certain possible reconstruction of society effected in some 
way or other. The idea is promulgated that men ought 
not to walk on their own legs where they want and ought to 
go, but that a kind of floor under their feet will be moved 
somehow, so that on it they can reach where they ought to 
go without moving their own legs. And, therefore, all 



2i6 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

their efforts ought to be directed, not to going so far as 
their strength allows in the direction they ought to go, but 
to standing still and constructing such a floor. 

In the sphere of political economy a theory is propounded 
which amounts to saying that the worse things are the 
better they are ; that the greater the accumulation of 
capital, and therefore the oppression of the workman, the 
nearer the day of emancipation, and, therefore, every per- 
sonal effort on the part of a man to free himself from the 
oppression of capital is useless. In the sphere of govern- 
ment it is maintained that the greater the power of the 
government, which, according to this theory, ought to inter- 
vene in every department of private life in which it has not 
yet intervened, the better it will be, and that therefore we 
ought to invoke the interference of government in private 
life/ In politics and international questions it is maintained 
that the improvement of the means of destruction, the mul- 
tiplication of armam^ents, will lead to the necessity of making 
war by means of congresses, arbitration, and so on. And, 
marvelous to say, so great is the dullness of men, that they 
believe in these theories, in spite of the fact that the whole 
course of life, every step they take, shows how unworthy 
they are of belief. 

The people are suffering from oppression, and to deliver 
them from this oppression they are advised to frame general 
measures for the improvement of their position, which 
measures are to be intrusted to the authorities, and them- 
selves to continue to yield obedience to the authorities. And 
obviously all that results from this is only greater power in 
the hands of the authorities, and greater oppression result- 
ing from it. 

Not one of the errors of men carries them so far away 
from the aim toward which they are struggling as this very 
one. They do all kinds of different things for the attain- 
ment of their aim, but not the one simple obvious thing 



IS WITHIN Your 217 

which is within reach of everyone. They devise the subtlest 
means for changing the position which is irksome to them, 
but not that simplest means, that everyone should refrain 
from doing what leads to that position. 

I have been told a story of a gallant police officer, who 
came to a village where the peasants were in insurrection 
and the military had been called out, and he undertook to 
pacify the insurrection in the spirit of Nicholas I., by his 
personal influence alone. He ordered some loads of rods 
to be brought, and collecting all the peasants together into 
a barn, he went in with them, locking the door after him. 
To begin with, he so terrified the peasants by his loud 
threats that, reduced to submission by him, they set to work 
to flog one another at his command. And so they flogged 
one another until a simpleton was found who would not 
allow himself to be flogged, and shouted to his companions 
not to flog one another. Only then the flogging ceased, and 
the police officer made his escape. Well, this simpleton's 
advice would never be followed by men of the state concep- 
tion of life, who continue to flog one another, and teach 
people that this very act of self-castigation is the last word 
of human wisdom. 

Indeed, can one imagine a more striking instance of men 
flogging themselves than the submissiveness with which 
men of our times will perform the very duties required of 
them to keep them in slavery, especially the duty of military 
service ? We see people enslaving themselves^ suffering 
from this slavery, and believing that it must be so, that it 
does not matter, and will not hinder the emancipation of 
men, which is being prepared somewhere, somehow, in spite 
of the ever-increasing growth of slavery. 

In fact, take any man of the present time whatever (I 
don't mean a true Christian, but an average man of the 
present day), educated or uneducated, believing or unbe- 
lieving, rich or poor, married or unmarried. Such a man 



2l8 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

lives working at his work, or enjoying his amusements, 
spending the fruits of his labors on himself or on those near 
to him, and, like everyone, hating every kind of restriction 
and deprivation, dissension and suffering. Such a man is 
going his way peaceably, when suddenly people come and say 
to him: First, promise and swear to us that you will slavishly 
obey us in everything we dictate to you, and will consider 
absolutely good and authoritative everything we plan, 
decide, and call law. Secondly, hand over a part of the 
fruits of your labors for us to dispose of — we will use the 
money to keep you in slavery, and to hinder you from 
forcibly opposing our orders. Thirdly, elect others, or be 
yourself elected, to take a pretended share in the govern- 
ment, knowing all the while that the government will pro- 
ceed quite without regard to the foolish speeches you, and 
those like you, may utter, and knowing that its proceedings 
will be according to our will, the will of those who have the 
army in their hands. Fourthly, come at a certain time to 
the law courts and take your share in those senseless cruel- 
ties which we perpetrate on sinners, and those whom we 
have corrupted, in the shape of penal servitude, exile, soli- 
tary confinement, and death. And fifthly and lastly, more 
than all this, in spite of the fact that you may be on the friend- 
liest terms with people of other nations, be ready, directly 
we order you to do so, to regard those whom we indicate to 
you as your enemies ; and be ready to assist, either in per- 
son or by proxy, in devastation, plunder, and murder of 
their men, women, children, and aged alike — possibly your 
own kinsmen or relations — if that is necessary to us. 

One would expect that every man of the present day 
who has a grain of sense left, might reply to such require- 
ments, " But why should I do all this?" One would think 
every right-minded man must say in amazement : ^' Why 
should I promise to yield obedience to everything that 
has been decreed first by Salisbury, then by Gladstone ; 



IS wiTHiisr Your 219 

one day by Boulanger, and another by Parliament ; one day 
by Peter III., the next by Catherine, and the day after by 
Pougachef ; one day by a mad king of Bavaria, another by 
WilHam ? Why should I promise to obey them, knowing 
them to be wicked or foolish people, or else not knowing 
them at all ? Why am I to hand over the fruits of my 
, labors to them in the shape of taxes, knowing that the 
I money will be spent on the support of officials, prisons, 
churches, armies, on things that are harmful, and on my 
own enslavement ? Why should I punish myself ? AVhy 
should I go wasting my time and hoodwinking myself, giv- 
ing to miscreant evildoers a semblance of legality, by 
taking part in elections, and pretending that I am taking 
part in the government, when I know very well that the 
/ real control of the government is in the hands of those 
who have got hold of the army ? Why should I go to the 
law courts to take part in the trial and punishment of men 
because they have sinned, knowing, if_ I am a Christian, 
thatjthe-Jaw of vengence is replaced by the law of love, 
and^if I am an educated man, that punishments do not 
reform, but only deprave those on whom they are inflicted ? 
And why, most of all, am I to consider as enemies the 
people of a neighboring nation, with whom I have hitherto 
lived and with whom I wish to live in love and harmony, 
and to kill and rob them, or to bring them to misery, simply 
in order that the keys of the temple at Jerusalem may be in 
the hands of one archbishop and not another, that one 
German and not another may be prince in Bulgaria, or that 
the English rather than the American merchants may cap- 
ture seals? 

And why, most of all, should I take part in person or 
hire others to murder my own brothers and kinsmen ? 
Why should I flog myself? It is altogether unnecessary 
for me ; it is hurtful to me, and from every point of view 
it is immoral, base, and vile. So why should I do this ? 



2 20 *♦ THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

If you tell me that if I do it not I shall receive some injury 
from someone, then, in the first place, I cannot anticipate 
from anyone an injury so great as the injury you bring on 
me if I obey you ; and secondly, it is perfectly clear to me 
that if we our own selves do not flog ourselves, no one will 
flog us. 

As for the government — that means the tzars, ministers, 
and officials with pens in their hands, who cannot force us 
into doing anything, as that officer of police compelled the 
peasants ; the men who will drag us to the law court, to 
prison, and to execution, are not tzars or officials with 
pens in their hands, but the very people who are in the 
same position as we are. And it is just as unprofitable and 
harmful and unpleasant to them to be flogged as^ to me, 
and therefore there is every likelihood that if I open their 
€yes they not only would not treat me with violence, but 
*' would do just as I am doing. 

Thirdly, even if it should come to pass that I had to 
suffer for it, even then it would be better for me to be 
exiled or sent to prison for standing up for common sense 
and right — which, if not to-day, at least within a very short 
time, must be triumphant — than to suffer for folly and 
wrong which must come to an end directly. And there- 
fore, even in that case, it is better to run the risk of their 
banishing me, shutting me up in prison, or executing me, 
than of my living all my life in bondage, through my own 
fault, to wicked men. Better is this than the possibility of 
being destroyed by victorious enemies, and being stupidly 
tortured and killed by them, in fighting for a cannon, or ai 
piece of land of no use to anyone, or for a senseless rag 
called a banner. 

I don't want to flog myself and I won't do it. I have no 
reason to do it. Do it yourselves, if you want it done ; but 
I won't do it. 

One would have thought that not religious or moral feel- 



/S WITHIN YOUy ^2t 

ing alone, but the simplest common sense and foresight 
should impel every man of the present day to answer and 
to act in that way. But not so. Men of the state con- 
ception of life are of the opinion that to act in that way is 
l^ot necessary, and is even prejudicial to the attainment of 
their object, the emancipation of men from slavery. They 
hold that we must continue, like the police officer's peas- 
ants, to flog one another, consoling ourselves with the 
reflection that we are talking away in the assemblies and 
meetings, founding trades unions, marching through the 
streets on the ist of May, getting up conspiracies, and 
stealthily teasing the government that is flogging us, and 
that through all this it will be brought to pass that, by vi 
enslaving ourselves in closer and closer bondage, we shall 
very soon be free. t: - 

Nothing hinders the emancipation of men from slavery ^-^^ 
so much as this amazing error. Instead of every man '^- , 
directing his energies to freeing himself, to transforming • 
his conception of life, people seek for an external united -W 
method of gaining freedom, and continue to rivet their J) ^ 
chains faster and faster. 

It is much as if men were to maintain that to make up a 
fire there was no need to kindle any of the coals, but that 
all that was necessary was to arrange the coals in a certain 
order. Yet the fact that the freedom of all men will be 
brought about only through the freedom of individual 
persons, becomes more and more clear as time goes on. 
The freedom of individual men, in the name of the Chris- 
tian conception of life, from state domination, which was 
formerly an exceptional and unnoticed phenomenon, has of 
late acquired threatening significance for state authorities. 

If in a former age, in the Roman times, it happened that 
a Christian confessed his religion and refused to take part 
in sacrifices, and to worship the emperors or the gods ; or 
in the Middle Ages a Christian refused to worship images, 



22 2 *• THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

or to acknowledge the authority of the Pope — these cases 
were in the first place a matter of chance. A man might 
be placed under the necessity of confessing his faith, or he 
might live all his life without being placed under this 
necessity. But now all men, without exception, are sub- 
jected to this trial of their faith. Every man of the present 
day is under the necessity of taking part in the cruelties of 
pagan life, or of refusing all participation in them. And 
secondly, in those days cases of refusal to worship the gods 
or the images or the Pope were not incidents that had any 
material bearing on the state. Whether men worshiped 
or did not worship the gods or the images or the Pope, 
the state remained just as powerful. But now cases of 
refusing to comply with the unchristian demands of the 
government are striking at the very root of state authority, 
because the whole authority of the state is based on the 
compliance with these unchristian demands. 

The sovereign powers of the world have in the course of 
time been brought into a position in which, for their own 
preservation, they must require from all men actions which 
cannot be performed by men who profess true Chris- 
tianity. 

And therefore in our days every profession of true Chris- 
tianity, by any individual man, strikes at the most essential 
power of the state, and inevitably leads the way for the 
emancipation of all. 

What importance, one might think, can one attach to 
such an incident as some dozens of crazy fellows, as people 
will call them, refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the 
government, refusing to pay taxes, to take part in law pro- 
ceedings or in military service ? 

These people are punished and exiled to a distance, and 
life goes on in its old way. One might think there was no 
importance in such incidents ; but yet, it is just those inci- 
dents, more than anything else, that will undermine the 



is WITHIN Your 223 

/power of the state and prepare the way for the freedom of 
men. These are the individual bees, who are beginning to 
separate from the swarm, and are flying near it, waiting till 
the whole swarm can no longer be prevented from starting 
off after them. And the governments know this, and fear 
such incidents more than all the socialists, communists, and 
anarchists, and their plots and dynamite bombs. 

A new reign is beginning. According to the universal 
rule and established order it is required that all the subjects 
should take the oath of allegiance to the new government. 
There is a general decree to that effect, and all are 
summoned to the council-houses to take the oath. All at 
once one man in Perm, another in Tula, a third in Moscow, 
and a fourth in Kalouga declare that they will not take the 
oath, and though there is no communication between them, 
they all explain their refusal on the same grounds — namely, 
ythat swearing is forbidden by the law of Christ, and that 
/even if swearing had not been forbidden, they could not, 
in the spirit of the law of Christ, promise to perform the 
evil actions required of them in the oath, such as informing 
against all such as may act against the interests of the 
government, or defending their government with firearms 
or attacking its enemies. They are brought before rural 
police officers, district police captains, priests, and gov- 
% ernors. They are admonished, questioned, threatened, and 
punished ; but they adhere to their resolution, and do not 
take the oath. And among the millions of those who did 
take the oath, those dozens go on living who did not take 
the oath. And they are questioned : 

'' What, didn't you take the oath ? " 

'' No, I didn't take the oath." 

" And what happened — nothing ?" 

** Nothing.'* 

The subjects of a state are all bound to pay taxes. And 
everyone pays taxes, till suddenly one man in Kharkov, 



2 24 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

another in Tver, and a third in Samara refuse to pay 
taxes — all, as though in collusion, saying the same thing. 
One says he will only pay when they tell him what object 
the money taken from him will be spent on. *^ If it is for 
good deeds," he says, *^ he will give it of his own accord, 
and more even than is required of him. If for evil deeds, 
then he will give nothing voluntarily, because by the law of 
Christ, whose follower he is, he cannot take part in evil 
deeds." The others, too, say the same in other words, and 
will not voluntarily pay the taxes. 

Those who have anything to be taken have their prop- 
erty taken from them by force ; as for those who have 
nothing, they are left alone. 

" What, didn't you pay the tax ? " 

" No, I didn't pay it." 

*'And what happened — nothing?" 

" Nothing." 

There is the institution of passports. Everyone moving 
from his place of residence is bound to carry one, and to 
pay a duty on it. Suddenly people are to be found in 
various places declaring that to carry a passport is not 
necessary, that one ought not to recognize one's depend- 
ence on a state which exists by means of force ; and these 
people do not carry passports, or pay the duty on them. 
And again, it's impossible to force those people by any 
means to do what is required. They send them to jail, 
and let them out again, and these people live without pass- 
ports. 

All peasants are bound to fill certain police offices — that 
of village constable, and of watchman, and so on. Sud- 
denly in Kharkov a peasant refuses to perform this duty, 
justifying his refusal on the ground that by the law of 
Christ, of which he is a follower, he cannot put any man in 
fetters, lock him up, or drag him from place to place. The 
same declaration is made by a peasant in Tver, another in 



IS WITH IN- you:' 225 

Tambov. These peasants are abused, beaten, shut up in 
prison, but they stick to their resolution and don't fill these 
offices against their convictions. And at last they cease to 
appoint them as constables. And again nothing happens. 

All citizens are obliged to take a share in law proceedings 
in the character of jurymen. Suddenly the most different 
people — mechanics, professors, tradesmen, peasants, serv- 
ants, as though by agreement refuse to fill this office, and 
not on the grounds allowed as sufficient by law, but because 
any process at law is, according to their views, unchristian. 
They fine these people, trying not to let them have an 
opportunity of explaining their motives in public, and 
replace them by others. And again nothing can be done. 

All young men of twenty-one years of age are obliged to 
draw lots for service in the army. All at once one young 
man in Moscow, another in Tver, a third in Kharkov, and 
a fourth in Kiev present themselves before the authorities, 
and, as though by previous agreement, declare that they 
will not take the oath, they will not serve because they are 
Christians. I will give the details of one of the first cases, 
since they have become more frequent, which I happen to 
know about.* The same treatment has been repeated in 
every other case. A young man of fair education refuses 
in the Moscow Townhall to take the oath. No attention 
is paid to what he says, and it is requested that he should 
pronounce the words of the oath like the rest. He declines, 
quoting a particular passage of the Gospel in which swear- 
ing is forbidden. No attention is paid to his arguments, 
and he is again requested to comply with the order, but he 
does not comply with it. Then it is supposed that he is a 
sectary and therefore does not understand Christianity in 
the right sense, that is to say, not in the sense in which the 
priests in the pay of the government understand it. And 

* All the details of this case, as well as those preceding it, are authentic. 



7.26 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

the young man is conducted under escort to the priests, 
that they may bring him to reason. The priests begin to 
reason with him, but their efforts in Christ's name to per- 
suade him to renounce Christ obviously have no influence 
on him ; he is pronounced incorrigible and sent back again 
to the army. He persists in not taking the oath and openly 
refuses to perform any military duties. It is a case that 
has not been provided for by the laws. To overlook such 
a refusal to comply with the demands of the authorities is 
out of the question, but to put such a case on a par with 
simple breach of discipline is also out of the question. 

After deliberation among themselves, the military au- 
thorities decide to get rid of the troublesome young man, 
to consider him as a revolutionist, and they dispatch him 
under escort to the committee of the secret police. The 
police authorities and gendarmes cross-question him, but 
nothing that he says can be brought under the head of any 
of the misdemeanors which come under their jurisdiction. 
And there is no possibility of accusing him either of revo- 
lutionary acts or revolutionary plotting, since he declares 
that he does not wish to attack anything, but, on the con- 
trary, is opposed to any use of force, and, far from plotting 
in secret, he seeks every opportunity of saying and doing 
all that he says and does in the most open manner. And 
the gendarmes, though they are bound by no hard-and-fast 
rules, still find noground fora criminal charge in the young 
man, and, like the clergy, they send him back to the army. 
Again the authorities deliberate together, and decide to ac- 
cept him though he has not taken the oath, and to enrol 
him among the soldiers. They put him into the uniform, 
enrol him, and send him under guard to the place where 
the army is quartered. There the chief officer of the 
division which he enters again expects the young man to 
perform his military duties, and again he refuses to obey, 
and in the presence of other soldiers explains th^ reason of 



IS WITHIN YOUr 227 

his refusal, saying that he as a Christian cannot voUintarily 
prepare himself to commit murder, which is forbidden by 
the law of Moses. 

This incident occurs in a provincial town. The case 
awakens the interest, and even the sympathy, not only of 
outsiders, but even of the officers. And the chief officers 
consequently do not decide to punish this refusal of obedi- 
ence with disciplinary measures. To save appearances, 
though, they shut the young man up in prison, and write 
to the highest military authorities to inquire what they are 
to do. To refuse to serve in the army, in which the Tzar 
himself serves, and which enjoys the blessing of the Church, 
seems insanity from the official point of view. Consequently 
they write from Petersburg that, since the young man 
must be out of his mind, they must not use any severe 
treatment with him, but must send him to a lunatic asylum, 
that his mental condition may be inquired into and be 
scientifically treated. They send him to the asylum in the 
hope that he will remain there, like another young man, 
who refused ten years ago at Tver to serve in the army, 
and who was tortured in the asylum till he submitted. But 
even this step does not rid the military authorities of the 
inconvenient man. The doctors examine him, interest 
themselves warmly in his case, and naturally finding in him 
no symptoms of mental disease, send him back to the army. 
There they receive him, and making believe to have forgot- 
ten his refusal, and his motives for it, they again request 
him to go to drill, and again in the presence of the other 
soldiers he refuses and explains the reason of his refusal. 
The affair continues to attract more and more attention, 
both among the soldiers and the inhabitants of the town. 
Again they write to Petersburg, and thence comes the 
decree to transfer the young man to some division of the 
army stationed on the frontier, in some place where the 
army is under martial law, where he can be shot for refus- 



2 28 «' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

ing to obey, and where the matter can proceed without 
attracting observation, seeing that there are few Russians 
and Christians in such a distant part, but the majority are 
foreigners and Mohammedans. This is accordingly done. 
They transfer him to a division stationed on the Zacaspian 
border, and in company with convicts send him to a chief 
officer who is notorious for his harshness and severity. 

All this time, through all these changes from place to 
place, the young man is roughly treated, kept in cold, hun- 
ger, and filth, and life is made burdensome to him generally. 
But all these sufferings do not compel him to change his 
resolution. On the Zacaspian border, where he is again 
requested to go on guard fully armed, he again declines to 
obey. He does not refuse to go and stand near the hay- 
stacks where they place him, but refuses to take his arms, 
declaring that he will not use violence in any case against 
anyone. All this takes place in the presence of the other 
soldiers. To let such a refusal pass unpunished is impossi- 
ble, and the young man is put on his trial for breach of 
discipline. The trial takes place, and he is sentenced to 
confinement in the military prison for two years. He is 
again transferred, in company with convicts, by etape, to 
Caucasus, and there he is shut up in prison and falls under 
the irresponsible power of the jailer. There he is perse- 
cuted for a year and a half, but he does not for all that 
alter his decision not to bear arms, and he explains why he 
will not do this to everyone with whom he is brought in 
contact. At the end of the second year they set him free, 
before the end of his term of imprisonment, reckoning it 
contrary to law to keep him in prison after his time of mili- 
tary service was over, and only too glad to get rid of him 
as soon as possible. 

Other men in various parts of Russia behave, as though 
by agreement, precisely in the same way as this young man, 
and in all these cases the government has adopted the 



IS WITHIN Your 229 

same timorous, undecided, and secretive course of action. 
Some of these men are sent to the lunatic asylum, some 
are enrolled as clerks and transferred to Siberia, some are 
sent to work in the forests, some are sent to prison, some 
are fined. And at this very time some men of this kind 
are in prison, not charged with their real offense — that is, 
denying the lawfulness of the action of the government, 
but for non-fulfillment of special obligations imposed by 
government. Thus an officer of reserve, who did not re- 
port his change of residence, and justified this on the 
ground that he would not serve in the army any longer, 
was fined thirty rubles for non-compliance with the orders 
of the superior authority. This fine he also declined volun- 
tarily to pay. In the same way some peasants and soldiers 
who have refused to be drilled and to bear arms have been 
placed under arrest on a charge of breach of discipline and 
insolence. 

And cases of refusing to comply with the demands of 
government when they are opposed to Christianity, and 
especially cases of refusing to serve in the army, are occur- 
ring of late not in Russia only, but everywhere. Thus I 
V happen to know that in Servia men of the so-called sect of 
\ Nazarenes steadily refuse to serve in the army, and the 
Austrian Government has been carrying on a fruitless con- 
test with them for years, punishing them with imprison- 
ment. In the year 1885 there were 130 such cases. I know 
that in Switzerland in the year 1890 there were men in 
prison in the castle of Chillon for declining to serve in the 
army, whose resolution was not shaken by their punishment. 
There have been such cases in Sweden, and the men who 
refused obedience were sent to prison in exactly the same 
way, and the government studiously concealed these cases 
from the people. There have been similar cases also in 
Prussia. I know of the case of a sub-lieutenant of the 
Guards, who in 1891 declared to the authorities in Berlin 



230 •' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

that he would not, as a Christian, continue to serve, and in 
spite of all admonitions, threats, and punishments he stuck 
to his resolution. In the south of France a society has 
arisen of late bearing the name of the Hinschists (these 
facts are taken from the Peace Herald^ July, 1891), the 
members of which refuse to enter military service on the 
grounds of their Christian principles. At first they were 
enrolled in the ambulance corps, but now, as their numbers 
increase, they are subjected to punishment for non-compli- 
ance, but they still refuse to bear arms just the same. 

The socialists, the communists, the anarchists, with 
their bombs and riots and revolutions, are not nearly so 
much dreaded by governments as these disconnected indi- 
viduals coming from different parts, and all justifying their 
non-compliance on the grounds of the same religion, v;hich 
is known to all the world. 

Every government knows by what means and in what 
^^;'i/r manner to defend itself from revolutionists, and has re- 
sources for doing so, and therefore does not dread these 
r/C external foes. But what are governments to do against 
men who show the uselessness, superfluousness, and perni- 
^^' ciousness of all governments, and who do not contend 
against them, but simply do not need them and do without 
them, and therefore are unwilling to take any part in them ? 

The revolutionists say : The form of government is bad 
in this respect and that respect ; we must overturn it and 
substitute this or that form of government. The Christian 
says : d know nothing about the form of government, I 
don't know whether it is good or bad, and I don't want to 
overturn it precisely because I don't know whether it's 
good or bad, but for the very same reason I don't want to 
support it either. And I not only don't want to, but I 
can't, because what it demands of me is against my con- 
science. 

All state obligations are against the conscience of a 



ijXii^ 




IS WITHIN YOU." 231 



jf Christian — the oath of allegiance, taxes, law proceedings, 
and military service. And the whole power of the govern- 
ment rests on these very obligations. 

Revolutionary enemies attack the government from~^) 
without. Christianity does not attack it at all, but, fromS 
within, it destroys all the foundations on which govern- / 
ment rests. 

Among the Russian people, especially since the age of 
Peter I., the protest of Christianity against the govern- 
ment has never ceased, and the social organization has 
been such that men emigrate in communes to Turkey, to 
China, and to uninhabited lands, and not only feel no need 
of state aid, but always regard the state as a useless 
burden, only to be endured as a misfortune, whether it 
happens to be Turkish, Russian, or Chinese. And so, too, 
among the Russian people more and more frequent 
examples have of late appeared of conscious Christian 

^ freedom from subjection to the state. And these examples 
are the more alarming for the government from the fact 
that these non-compliant persons often belong not to the 
so-called lower uneducated classes, but are men of fair or 
good education ; and also from the fact that they do not in 
these days justify their position by any mystic and excep- 
tional views, as in former times, do not associate them- 
selves with any superstitious or fanatic rites, like the sects 
who practice self-immolation by fire, or the wandering 
pilgrims, but put their refusal on the very simplest and 
clearest grounds, comprehensible to all, and recognized as 
true by all. 

Thus they refuse the voluntary payment of taxes, 
because taxes are spent on deeds of violence — on the pay 
of men of violence — soldiers, on the construction of 
prisons, fortresses, and cannons. They as Christians 
regard it as sinful and immoral to have any hand in such 
deeds. 



232 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Those who refuse to take the oath of allegiance refuse 
because to promise obedience to authorities, that is, to men 
who are given to deeds of violence, is contrary, to the 
sense of Christ's teaching. They refuse to take the oath 
in the law courts, because oaths are directly forbidden by 
the Gospel. They refuse to perform police duties, because 
in the performance of these duties they must use force 
against their brothers and ill treat them, and a Christian 
cannot do that. They refuse to take part in trials at law, 
because they consider every appeal to law is fulfilling the 
law of vengeance, which is inconsistent with the Christian 
law of forgiveness and love. They refuse to take any part 
in military preparations and in the army, because they can- 
not be executioners, and they are unwilling to prepare 
themselves to be so. 

The motives in all these cases are so excellent that, how- 
ever despotic governments may be, they could hardly 
punish them openly. To punish men for refusing to act 
against their conscience the government must renounce all 
claim to good sense and benevolence. And they assure 
people that they only rule in the name of good sense and 
benevolence. 

What are governments to do against such people ? 

Governments can of course flog to death or execute or 
keep in perpetual imprisonment all enemies who want to 
overturn them by violence, they can lavish gold on that 
section of the people who are ready to destroy their enemies. 
But what can they do against men who, without wishing to 
overturn or destroy anything, desire simply for their part 
to do nothing against the law of Christ, and who, therefore, 
refuse to perform the commonest state requirements, which 
are, therefore, the most indispensable to the maintenance 
of the state ? 

If they had been revolutionists, advocating and practic- 
ing violence and murder, their suppression would have been 



IS WITHIN Your 233 

ail easy matter ; some of them could have been bought 
over, some could have been duped, some could have been 
overawed, and these who could not be bought over, duped, 
or overawed would have been treated as criminals, enemies 
of society, would have been executed or imprisoned, and 
the crowd would have approved of the action of the govern- 
ment. If they had been fanaticc, professing some peculiar 
belief, it might have been possible, in disproving the super- 
stitious errors mixed in with their religion, to attack also 
the truth they advocate. But what is to be done with men 
who profess no revolutionary ideas nor any peculiar 
religious dogmas, but merely because they are unwilling to 
do evil to any man, refuse to take the oath, to pay taxes, to 
take part in law proceedings, to serve in the army, to fulfill, 
in fact, any of the obligations upon which the whole fabric 
of a state rests ? What is to done with such people ? To 
buy them over with bribes is impossible ; the very risks to 
which they voluntarily expose themselves show that they 
are incorruptible. To dupe them into believing that this is 
their duty to God is also impossible, since their refusal is 
based on the clear, unmistakable law of God, recognized 
even by those who are trying to compel men to act against 
it. To terrify them by threats is still less possible, because 
the deprivations and sufferings to which they are subjected 
only strengthen their desire to follow the faith by which 
they are commanded : to obey God rather than men, and 
not to. fear those who can destroy the body, but to fear 
him who can destroy body and soul. To kill them or keep 
them in perpetual imprisonment is also impossible. These 
men have friends, and a past ; their way of thinking and 
acting is well known ; they are known by everyone for 
good, gentle, peaceable people, and they cannot be regarded 
as criminals who must be removed for the safety of society. 
And to put men to death who are regarded as good men is 
to provoke others to champion them and justify their 



234 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

refusal. And it is only necessary to explain the reasons of 
their refusal to make clear to everyone that these reasons 
have the same force for all other men, and that they all 
ought to have done the same long 3go. These cases put 
the ruling powers into a desperate position. They see that 
the prophecy of Christianity is coming to pass, that it is 
loosening the fetters of those in chains, and setting free 
them that are in bondage, and that this must inevitably be 
the end of all oppressors. The ruling authorities see this, 
they know that their hours are numbered, and they can do 
nothing. AU that they can do to save themselves is only 
deferring the hour of their downfall. And this they do, 
but their position is none the less desperate. 

It is like the position of a conqueror who is trying to save 
a town which has been been set on fire by its own inhabit- 
ants. Directly he puts out the conflagration in one place, 
it is alight in two other places ; directly he gives in to the 
fire and cuts off what is on fire from a large building, the 
building itself is alight at both ends. These separate 
fires may be few, but they are burning with a flame which, 
however small a spark it starts from, never ceases till it has 
set the whole ablaze. 

Thus it is that the ruling authorities are in such a defense- 
less position before men who advocate Christianity, that but 
little is necessary to overthrow this sovereign power which 
seems so powerful, and has held such an exalted position 
for so many centuries. And yet social reformers are busy 
promulgating the idea that it is not necessary and is even 
pernicious and immoral for every man separately to work 
out his own freedom. As though, while one set of men 
have been at work a long while turning a river into a new 
channel, and had dug out a complete water-course and had 
only to open the floodgates for the water to rush in and do 
the rest, another set of men should come along and begin to 
advise them that it would be much better, instead of letting 



/s WITHIN Your :^3S 

the water out, to construct a machine which would xadlethe 
water up from one side and pour it over the other side. 

But the thing has gone too far. Already ruling govern- 
ments feel their weak and defenseless position, and men of 
Christian principles are awakening from their apathy, and 
already begin to feel their power. 

^ ** I am come to send a fire on the earth,'* said Christ, 
" and what will I, if it be already kindled t " 
And this fire is beginning to burn. 



CHAPTER X. 

EVIL CANNOT BE SUPPRESSED BY THE PHYSICAL FORCE OF 
THE GOVERNMENT — THE MORAL PROGRESS OF HUMANITY 
IS BROUGHT ABOUT NOT ONLY BY INDIVIDUAL RECOGNI- 
TION OF TRUTH, BUT ALSO THROUGH THE ESTABLISH- 
MENT OF A PUBLIC OPINION. 

Christianity Destroys the State — But Which is Most Necessary : Chris- 
tianity or the State ? — There are Some who Assert the Necessity of a 
State Organization, and Others who Deny it, both Arguing from same 
First Principles — Neither Contention can be Proved by Abstract Argu- 
ment — The Question must be Decided by the Stage in the Develop- 
ment of Conscience of Each Man, which will either Prevent or Allow 
him to Support a Government Organization — Recognition of the 
Futility and Immorality of Supporting a State Organization Contrary 
to Christian Principles will Decide the Question for Every Man, in 
Spite of any Action on Part of the State — Argument of those who 
Defend the Government, that it is a Form of Social Life, Needed to 
Protect the Good from the Wicked, till all Nations and all Members 

/ of each Nation have Become Christians — The Most Wicked are Always 
those in Power — The whole History of Humanity is the History of the 

./ Forcible Appropriation of Power by the Wicked and their Oppression 

' of the Good — The Recognition by Governments of the Necessity of 
Opposing Evil by Force is Equivalent to Suicide on their Part — The 
Abolition of State-violence cannot Increase the Sum Total of Acts of 
Violence — The Suppression of the Use of Force is not only Possible, 
but is even Taking Place before Our Eyes — But it will Never be Sup- 



236 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

pressed by the Violence of Government, but through Men who have 
Attained Power by Evidence Recognizing its Emptiness and Becoming 
Better and I^ess Capable of Using Force — Individual Men and also 
JfWhole Nations Pass Through this Process — By this Means Christianity 
is Diffused Through Consciousness of Men, not only in Spite of Use of 
Violence by Government, but even Through its Action, and therefore the 
Suppression is not to be Dreaded, but is Brought About by the National 
Progress of Life — Objection of those who Defend State Organization 
that Universal Adoption of Christianity is hardly Likely to be Realized 
at any Time — The General Adoption of the Truths of Christianity is 
being Brought About not only by the Gradual and Inward Means, that is, 
by Knowledge of the Truth, Prophetic Insight, and Recognition of the 
Emptiness of Power, and Renunciation of it by Individuals, but also by 
Another External Means, the Acceptance of a New Truth by Whole 
Masses of Men on a Lower Level of Development Through Simple 
Confidence in their Leaders — When a Certain Stage in the Diffusion 
of a Truth has been Reached, a Public Opinion is Created which Im- 
pels a Whole Mass of Men, formerly Antagonistic to the New Truth, 
to Accept it — And therefore all Men may Quickly be Brought to 
Renounce the use of Violence when once a Christian Public Opinion 
is Established — The Conviction of Force being Necessary Hinders the 
Establishment of a Christian Public Opinion — The Use of Violence 
Leads Men to Distrust the Spiritual Force which is the Only Force by 
which they Advance — Neither Nations nor Individuals have been 
really Subjugated by Force, but only by Public Opinion, which no Force 
can Resist — Savage Nations and Savage Men can only be Subdued by 
the Diffusion of a Christian Standard among them, while actually 
Christian Nations in order to Subdue them do all they can to Destroy 
a Christian Standard — These Fruitless Attempts to Civilize Savages 
Cannot be Adduced as Proofs that Men Cannot be Subdued by Chris- 
tianity — Violence by Corrupting Public Opinion, only Hinders the 
Social Organization from being What it Ought to Be — And by the Use 
of Violence being Suppressed, a Christian Public Opinion would be 
Established — Whatever might be the Result of the Suppression of Use 
of Force, this Unknown Future could not be Worse than the Present 
Condition, and so there is no Need to Dread it — To Attain Knowledge of 
the Unknown, and to Move Toward it, is the Essence of Life. 

Christianity in its true sense puts an end to govern- 
ment. So it was understood at its very commencement ; it 
was for that cause that Christ was crucified. So it has 



IS WITHIN you:' 237 

always been understood by people who were not under the 
necessity of justifying a Christian government. Only from 
the time that the heads of government assumed an external 
and nominal Christianity, men began to invent all the 
impossible, cunningly devised theories by means of which 
Christianity can be reconciled with government. But no 
honest and serious-minded man of our day can help seeing 
the incompatibility of true Christianity — the doctrine of 
meekness, forgiveness of injuries, and love — with govern- 
ment, with its pomp, acts of violence, executions, and wars. 
The profession of true Christianity not only excludes the 
possibility of recognizing government, but even destroys 
its very foundations. 

/ But if it is so, and we are right in saying that Christianity 

/ is incompatible with government, then the question naturally 

N presents itself: which is more necessary to the good of 

\ humanity, in which way is men's happiness best to be 

secured, by maintaining the organization of government or 

by destroying it and replacing it by Christianity ? 

Some people maintain that government is more necessary 
for humanity, that the destruction of the state organization 
would involve the destruction of all that humanity has 
gained, that the state has been and still is the only form in 
which humanity can develop. The evil which we see 
among peoples living under a government organization they 
attribute not to that type of society, but to its abuses, which, 
they say, can be corrected without destroying it, and thus 
humanity, without discarding the state organization, can 
develop and attain a high degree of happiness. And men 
of this way of thinking bring forward in support of their 
views arguments which they think irrefutable drawn from 
history, philosophy, and even religion. But there are men 
who hold on the contrary that, as there was a time when 
humanity lived without government, such an organization 
is temporary, and that a time must come when men need a 



2S^ *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

new organization, and that that time has come now. And 
men of this way of thinking also bring forward in support 
of their views arguments which they think irrefutable from 
philosophy, history, and religion. 

Volumes may be written in defense of the former view 
\^^ (and volumes indeed have long ago been written and 
more will still be written on that side), but much also 
can be written against it (and much also, and most bril- 
iantly, has been written — though more recently — on this 
side). 

And it cannot be proved, as the champions of the state 
maintain, that the destruction of government involves a 
social chaos, mutual spoliation and murder, the destruction 
of all social institutions, and the return of mankind to bar- 
barism. Nor can it be proved as the opponents of govern- 
ment maintain that men have already become so wise and 
good that they will not spoil or murder one another, but 
will prefer peaceful associations to hostilities ; that of their 
own accord, unaided by the state, they will make all the 
arrangements that they need, and that therefore govern- 
ment, far from being any aid, under show of guarding men 
exerts a pernicious and brutalizing influence over them. It 
is impossible to prove either of these contentions by 
abstract reasoning. Still less possible is it to prove them 
by experiment, since the whole matter turns on the ques- 
tion, ought we to try the experiment ? The question 
whether or not the time has come to make an end of gov- 
ernment would be unanswerable, except that there exists 
another living means of settling it beyond dispute. 

We may dispute upon the question whether the nestlings 
are ready to do without the mother-hen and to come out of 
the eggs, or whether they are not yet advanced enough. 
But the young birds will decide the question without any 
regard for our arguments when they find themselves 
cramped for space in the eggs. Then they will begin to 



IS WITHIN Your 239 

try them with their beaks and come out of them of their 
own accord. 

It is the same with the question whether the time has 
come to do away with the governmental type of society 
and to replace it by a new type. If a man, through the 
growth of a higher conscience, can no longer comply with 
the demands of government, he finds himself cramped by 
it and at the same time no longer needs its protection. 
When this comes to pass, the question whether men are 
ready to discard the governmental type is solved. And 
the conclusion will be as final for them as for the young 
birds hatched out of the eggs. Just as no power in the 
world can put them back into the shells, so can no power 
in the world bring men again under the governmental type 
of society when once they have outgrown it. 

*^ It may well be that government was necessary and is 
still necessary for all the advantages which you attribute 
to it," says the man who has mastered the Christian theory 
of life. " I only know that on the one hand, government is 
no longer necessary for fnCy and on the other hand, /can 
no longer carry out the measures that are necessary to the 
existence of a government. Settle for yourselves what you 
need for your life. I cannot prove the need or the harm 
of governments in general. I know only what I need and 
do not need, what I can do and what I cannot. I know 
that I do not need to divide myself off from other nations, 
and therefore I cannot admit that I belong exclusively to 
any state or nation, or that I owe allegiance to any govern- 
ment. I know that I do not need all the government 
institutions organized within the state, and therefore 
I cannot deprive people who need my labor to give it in 
the form of taxes to institutions which I do not need, 
which for all I know may be pernicious. I know that 
I have no need of the administration or of courts of 
justice founded upon force, and therefore I can take no 



240 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

part in either. I know that I do not need to attack and 
slaughter other nations or to defend myself from them with 
arms, and therefore I can take no part in wars or prepara- 
tions for wars. It may well be that there are people who 
cannot help regarding all this as necessary and indispens- 
able. I cannot dispute the question with them, I can only 
speak for myself ; but I can say with absolute certainty 
that I do not need it, and that I cannot do it. And I do 
not need this and I cannot do it, not because such is my 
own, my personal will, but because such is the will of him 
who sent me into life, and gave me an indubitable law for 
my conduct through life." 

Whatever arguments may be advanced in support of the 
contention that the suppression of government authority 
would be injurious and would lead to great calamities, 
men who have once outgrown the governmental form of 
society cannot go back to it again. And all the reasoning 
in the world cannot make the man who has outgrown the 
governmental form of society take part in actions dis- 
allowed by his conscience, any more than the full-grown 
bird can be made to return into the egg-shell. 

'* But even it be so," say the champions of the existing 
order of things, ^^ still the suppression of government 
violence can only be possible and desirable when all men 
have become Christians. So long as among people nomi- 
nally Christians there are unchristian wicked men, who for 
the gratification of their own lusts are ready to do harm to 
others, the suppression of government authority, far from 
being a blessing to others, would only increase their mis- 
eries. The suppression of the governmental type of society 
is not only undesirable so long as there is only a minority 
of true Christians ; it would not even be desirable if the 
whole of a nation were Christians, but among and around 
them were still unchristian men of other nations. For 
these unchristian men would rob, outrage, and kill the 



IS wiTHm YOU:' 241 

Christians with impunity and would make their lives miser- 
able. All that would result, would be that the bad would 
oppress and outrage the good with impunity. And there- 
fore the authority of government must not be suppressed 
till all the wicked and rapacious people in the world are 
extinct. And since this will either never be, or at least 
cannot be for a long time to come, in spite of the efforts of 
individual Christians to be independent of government 
authority, it ought to be maintained in the interests of the 
majority. The champions of government assert that with- 
out it the wicked will oppress and outrage the good, and 
that the power of the government enables the good to 
resist the wicked." 

But in this assertion the champions of the existing order 
of things take for granted the proposition they want to 
prove. When they say that except for the government the 
bad would oppress the good, they take it for granted that 
the good are those who at the present time are in posses- 
sion of power, and the bad are those who are in subjection 
to it. But this is just what wants proving. It would only 
be true if the custom of our society were what is, or rather 
is supposed to be, the custom in China ; that is, that the 
good always rule, and that directly those at the head of 
government cease to be better than those they rule over, 
the citizens are bound to remove them. This is supposed 
to be the custom in China. In reality it is not so and can 
never be so. For to remove the heads of a government 
ruling by force, it is not the right alone, but the power to 
do so that is needed. So that even in China this is only 
an imaginary custom. And in our Christian world we do 
not even suppose such a custom, and we have nothing on 
which to build up the supposition that it is the good or the 
superior who are in power ; in reality it is those who have 
seized power aud who keep it for their own and their 
retainers* benefit. 



242 THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

The good cannot seize power, nor retain it ; to do this 
men must love power. And love of power is inconsistent 
with goodness ; but quite consistent with the very opposite 
qualities — pride, cunning, cruelty. 

Without the aggrandizement of self and the abasement 
of others, without hypocrisies and deceptions, without 
prisons, fortresses, executions, and murders, no power can 
come into existence or be maintained. 

*^ If the power of government is suppressed the more 
wicked will oppress the less wicked," say the champions 
of state authority. But when the Egyptians conquered 
the Jews, the Romans conquered the Greeks, and the 
Barbarians conquered the Romans, is it possible that all 
the conquerors were always better than those they con- 
quered ? And the same with the transitions of power with- 
in a state from one personage to another : has the power 
always passed from a worse person to a better one ? When 
Louis XVI. was removed and Robespierre came to power, 
and afterward Napoleon — who ruled then, a better man or 
a worse ? And when were better men in power, when the 
Versaillist party or when the Commune was in power ? 
When Charles I. was ruler, or when Cromwell ? And when 
Peter III. was Tzar, or when he was killed and Catherine 
was Tzaritsa in one-half of Russia and Pougachef ruled 
the other ? Which was bad then, and which was good ? 
All men who happen to be in authority assert that their 
authority is necessary to keep the bad from oppressing the 
good, assuming that they themselves are the good/ar ex- 
cellence, who protect other good people from the bad. 

But ruling means using force, and using force means 
doing to him to whom force is used, what he does not like 
and what he who uses the force would certainly not like 
done to himself. Consequently ruling means doing to 
others what we would not they should do unto us, that is, 
doing wrong. 



IS WITHIN Your 243 

^ To submit means to prefer suffering to using force. 
And to prefer suffering to using force means to be good, 

J or at least less wicked than those who do unto others what 

/ they would not like themselves. 

^ And therefore, in all probability, not the better but the 
worse have always ruled and are ruling now. There may 
be bad men among those who are ruled, but it cannot be 
that those who are better have generally ruled those who 
are worse. 

It might be possible to suppose this with the inexact 
heathen definition of good ; but with the clear Christian 
definition of good and evil, it is impossible to imagine 
it. 

If the more or less good, and the more or less bad can- 
not be distinguished in the heathen world, the Christian 
conception of good and evil has so clearly defined the 
characteristics of the good and the wicked, that it is impos- 
sible to confound them. According to Christ's teaching 
the good are those who are meek and long-suffering, do 
not resist evil by force, forgive injuries, and love their 
enemies; those are wicked who exalt themselves, oppress, ^ ^'""'■Y*'^ 
strive, and use force. Therefore by Christ's teaching there '., p^ ^ P 
can be no doubt whether the good are to be found among \ [/ 
rulers or ruled, and whether the wicked are among the .^-^-v 

ruled or the rulers. Indeed it is absurd even to speak of 
Christians ruling. 

Non-Christians, that is those who find the aim of their 
lives in earthly happiness, must always rule Christians, the 
aim of whose lives is the renunciation of such earthly 
happiness. 

This difference has always existed and has become more 
and more defined as the Christian religion has been more 
widely diffused and more correctly understood. 

The more widely true Christianity was diffused and the 
more it penetrated men's conscience, the more impossible 



(J 



J 



244 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

it was for Christians to be rulers, and the easier it became 
for non-Christians to rule them. 

** To get rid of governmental violence in a society in which 
all are not true Christians, will only result in the wicked 
dominating the good and oppressing them with impunity," 
say the champions of the existing order of things. But it 
has never been, and cannot be otherwise. So it has always 
been from the beginning of the world, and so it is still. 
The ivicked will always dominate the good^ and will always 
oppress them, Cain overpowered Abel, the cunning Jacob 
oppressed the guileless Esau and was in his turn deceived 
by Laban, Caiaphas and Pilate oppressed Christ, the 
Roman emperors oppressed Seneca, Epictetus, and the 
good Romans who lived in their times. John IV. with his 
favorites, the syphilitic drunken Peter with his buffoons, the 
vicious Catherine with her paramours, ruled and oppressed 
the industrious religious Russians of their times. 

William is ruling over the Germans, Stambouloff over 
the Bulgarians, the Russian officials over the Russian 
people. The Germans have dominated the Italians, now 
they dominate the Hungarians and Slavonians ; the Turks 
have dominated and still dominate the Slavonians and 
Greeks ; the English dominate the Hindoos, the Mongo- 
lians dominate the Chinese. 

So that whether governmental violence is suppressed or 
fjnot, the position of good men, in being oppressed by the 
wicked, will be unchanged. 

To terrify men with the prospect of the wicked dominat- 
ing the good is impossible, for that is just what has always 
been, and is now, and cannot but be. 

The whole history of pagan times is nothing but a recital 
of the incidents and means by which the more wicked 
gained possession of power over the less wicked, and 
retained it by cruelties and deceptions, ruling over the good 
under the pretense of guarding the right and protecting the 



IS WITHIN Your 245 

good from the wicked. All the revolutions in history are 
only examples of the more wicked seizing power and 
oppressing the good. In declaring that if their authority 
did not exist the more wicked would oppress the good, the 
ruling authorities only show their disinclination to let 
other oppressors come to power who would like to snatch 
it from them. 

But in asserting this they only accuse themselves. They 
say that their power, /. ^., violence, is needed to defend 
men from other possible oppressors in the present or the 
future.* 

The weakness of the use of violence lies in the fact that 
all the arguments brought forward by oppressors in their 
own defense can with even better reason be advanced 
against them. They plead the danger of violence — most 
often imagined in the future — but they are all the while 
continuing to practice actual violence themselves. *^ You 
say that men used to pillage and murder in the past, and 
that you are afraid that they will pillage and murder one 
another if your power were no more. That may happen — 
or it may not happen. But the fact that you ruin thou- 
sands of men in prisons, fortresses, galleys, and exile, break 
up millions of families and ruin millions of men, physically 
as well as morally, in the army, that fact is not an imaginary 
but a real act of violence, which, according to your own 
argument, one ought to oppose by violence. And so you 
are yourselves these wicked men against whom, according 

* I may quote in this connection the amazingly naive and comic decla- 
ration of the Russian authorities, the oppressors of other nationalities — 
the Poles, the Germans of the Baltic provinces, and the Jews. The 
Russian Government has oppressed its subjects for centuries, and has 
never troubled itself about the Little Russians of Poland, or the Letts of 
the Baltic provinces, or the Russian peasants, exploited by everyone. 
And now it has all of a sudden become the champion of the oppressed — - 
the very oppressed whom it is itself oppressing. 



246 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

to your own argument, it is absolutely necessary to use 
violence," the oppressed are sure to say to their oppressors. 
And non-Christian men always do say, and think and act 
on this reasoning. If the oppressed are more wicked than 
their oppressors, they attack them and try to overthrow 
them ; and in favorable circumstances they succeed in 
overthrowing them, or what is more common, they rise into 
the ranks of the oppressors and assist in their acts of 
violence. 

So that the very violence which the champions of gov- 
ernment hold up as a terror — pretending that except for its 
oppressive power the wicked would oppress the good — has 
really always existed and will exist in human society. And 
therefore the suppression of state violence cannot in any 
case be the cause of increased oppression of the good by the 
wicked. 

If state violence ceased, there would be acts of violence 
perhaps on the part of different people, other than those who 
had done deeds of violence before. But the total amount 
of violence could not in any case be increased by the mere 
fact of power passing from one set of men to another. 

" State violence can only cease when there are no more 
wicked men in society," say the champions of the existing 
order of things, assuming in this of course that since there 
will always be wicked men, it can never cease. And that 
would be right enough if it were the case, as they assume, 
that the oppressors are always the best of men, and that the 
sole means of saving men from evil is by violence. Then, 
indeed, violence could never cease. But since this is not 
the case, but quite the contrary, that it is not the better 
oppress the worse, but the worse oppress the better, and 
since violence will never put an end to evil, and there is, 
moreover, another means of putting an end to it, the asser- 
tion that violence will never cease is incorrect. The use of-, -r, 
violence grows less and less and evidently must disappear, j [ 



IS WITHIN Your 247 

But this will not come to pass, as some champions of the 
existing order imagine, through the oppressed becoming 
better and better under the influence of government (on the 
contrary, its influence causes their continual degradation), 
but through the fact that all men are constantly growing 
better and better of themselves, so that even the most 
wicked, who are in power, will become less and less wicked, ;, 
/till at last they are so good as to be incapable of using/ 
\ jViolence. * - 

The progressive movement of humanity does not proceed 
from the better elements in society seizing power and 
making those who are subject to them better, by forcible 
means, as both conservatives and revolutionists imagine. 
It proceeds first and principally from the fact that all men 
in general are advancing steadily and undeviatingly toward 
a more and more conscious assimilation of the Christian 
/[theory of life ; and secondly, from the fact that, even 
apart from conscious spiritual life, men are unconsciously 
brought into a more Christian attitude to life by the very 
process of one set of men grasping the power, and again 
being replaced by others. 

The worse elements of society, gaining possession of 
power, under the sobering influence which always accom- 
panies power, grow less and less cruel, and become inca- 
pable of using cruel forms of violence. Consequently others 
are able to seize their place, and the same process of soft- 
ening and, so to say, unconscious Christianizing goes on with 
them. It is something like the process of ebullition. The 
majority of men, having the non-Christian view of life, 
always strive for power and struggle to obtain it. In this 
struggle the most cruel, the coarsest, the least Christian 
elements of society overpower the most gentle, well-dis- 
posed, and Christian, and rise by means of their violence 
to the upper ranks of society. And in them is Christ's 
prophecy fulfilled : *^ Woe to you that are rich ! woe unto 



248 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

you that are full ! woe unto you when all men shall speak 
well of you ! " For the men who are in possession of power 
and all that results from it — glory and wealth — and have at- 
tained the various aims they set before themselves, recog- 
nize the vanity of it all and return to the position from 
which they came. Charles V., John IV., Alexander I., 
recognizing the emptiness and the evil of power, renounced 
it because they were incapable of using violence for their 
own benefit as they had done. 

But they are not the solitary examples of this recogni- 
tion of the emptiness and evil of power. Everyone who 
gains a position of power he has striven for, every general, 
every minister, every millionaire, every petty official who 
has gained the place he has coveted for ten years, every 
rich peasant who has laid by some hundred rubles, passes 
through this unconscious process of softening. 

And not only individual men, but societies of men, whole 
nations, pass through this process. 

The seductions of power, and all the wealth, honor, and 
luxury it gives, seem a sufficient aim for men's efforts only 
so long as they are unattained. Directly a man reaches 
them he sees all their vanity, and they gradually lose all 
their power of attraction. They are like clouds which have 
form and beauty only from the distance ; directly one as- 
cends into them, all their splendor vanishes. 

Men who are in possession of power and wealth, some- 
times even those who have gained for themselves their 
power and wealth, but more often their heirs, cease to be 
so eager for power, and so cruel in their efforts to obtain it. 

Having learnt by experience, under the operation of 
Christian influence, the vanity of all that is gained by vio- 
lence, men sometimes in one, sometimes in several genera- 
tions lose the vices which are generated by the passion for 
power and wealth. They become less cruel and so cannot 
maintain their position, and are expelled from power by 



IS WITHIN Your 249 

Others less Christian and more wicked. Thus they return 
to a rank of society lower in position, but higher in morality, 
raising thereby the average level of Christian consciousness 
in men. But directly after them again the worst, coarsest, 
least Christian elements of society rise to the top, and are 
subjected to the same process as their predecessors, and 
again in a generation or so, seeing the vanity of what is 
gained by violence, and having imbibed Christianity, they 
come down again among the oppressed, and their place is 
again filled by new oppressors, less brutal than former op- 
pressors, though more so than those they oppress. So 
that, although power remains externally the same as it was, 
with every change of the men in power there is a constant 
increase of the number of men who have been brought by 
experience to the necessity of assimilating the Christian 
conception of life, and with every change — though it is the 
coarsest, crudest, and least Christian who come into pos- 
session of power, they are less coarse and cruel and more 
Christian than their predecessors when they gained posses- 
sion of power. 

Power selects and attracts the worst elements of society, 
transforms them, improves and softens them, and returns 
them to society. 

Such is the process by means of which Christianity, in 
spite of the hindrances to human progress resulting from 
the violence of power, gains more and more hold of men. 
Christianity penetrates to the consciousness of men, not 
only in spite of the violence of power, but also by means of 
it. 

And therefore the assertion of the champions of the 
state, that if the power of government were suppressed the 
wicked would oppress the good, not only fails to show that 
that is to be dreaded, since it is just what happens now, 
but proves, on the contrary, that it is governmental power 
which enables the wicked to oppress the good, and is the 



250 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

evil most desirable to suppress, and that it is being gradu- 
ally suppressed in the natural course of things. 

"But if it be true that governmental power will disap- 
pear when those in power become so Christian that they 
renounce power of their own accord, and there are no men 
found willing to take their place, and even if this process 
is already going on," say the champions of the existing 
order, "when will that come to pass? If, after eighteen 
hundred years, there are still so many eager for power, and 
so few anxious to obey, there seems no likelihood of its 
happening very soon — or indeed of its ever happening at 
all. 

" Even if there are, as there have always been, some men 
who prefer renouncing power to enjoying it, the mass of 
men in reserve, who prefer dominion to subjection, is so 
great that it is difficult to imagine a time when the number 
will be exhausted. 

" Before this Christianizing process could so affect all 
men one after another that they would pass from the 
heathen to the Christian conception of life, and would 
voluntarily abandon power and wealth, it would be neces- 
sary that all the coarse, haif-savage men, completely inca- 
pable of appreciating Christianity or acting upon it, of 
whom there are always a great many in every Christian 
society, should be converted to Christianity. More than 
this, all the savage and absolutely non-Christian peoples, 
who are so numerous outside the Christian world, must 
also be converted. And therefore, even if we admit that 
this Christianizing process will some day affect everyone, 
still, judging by the amount of progress it has made in 
eighteen hundred years, it will be many times eighteen 
centuries before it will do so. And it is therefore impos- 
sible and unprofitable to think at present of anything so 
impracticable as the suppression of authority. We ought 
only to try to put authority into the best hands.*' 



IS WITHIN you:' 251 

And this criticism would be perfectly just, if the transi- 
tion from one conception of life to another were only 
accomplished by the single process of all men, separately 
and successively, realizing, each for himself, the emptiness 
of power, and reaching Christian truth by the inner spiritual 
path. That process goes on unceasingly, and men are 
passing over to Christianity one after another by this inner 
way. 

But there is also another external means by which men 
reach Christianity and by which the transition is less 
gradual. 

This transition from one organization of life to another 
is not accomplished by degrees like the sand running 
through the hourglass grain after grain. It is more like 
the water filling a vessel floating on water. At first the 
water only runs in slowly on one side, but as the vessel 
grows heavier it suddenly begins to sink, and almost 
instantaneously fills with water. 

It is just the same with the transitions of mankind from 
one conception — and so from one organization of life — to 
another. At first only gradually and slowly, one after 
another, men attain to the new truth by the inner spiritual 
way, and follow it out in life. But when a certain point in 
\the diffusion of the truth has been reached, it is suddenly 
assimilated by everyone, not by the inner way, but, as it 
were, involuntarily. 

That is why the champions of the existing order are 
wrong in arguing that, since only a small section of man- 
kind has passed over to Christianity in eighteen centuries, 
it must be many times eighteen centuries before all the 
remainder do the same. For in that argument they do not 
take into account any other means, besides the inward 
spiritual one, by which men assimilate a new truth and pass 
from one order of life to another. 

Men do not only assimilate a truth throw.gh recognizing 



25 2 '' THE KiNGlfOM OF GOD 

■ it by prophetic insight, or by experience of life. When 
the truth has become sufficiently widely diffused, men at a 
lower stage of development accept it all at once simply 
through confidence in those who have reached it by the 
inner spiritual way, and are applying it to life. 

Every new truth, by which the order of huraan life is 
changed and humanity is advanced, is at first accepted by 
"" only a very small number of men who understand it through 
inner spiritual intuition. The remainder of mankind who 
accepted on trust the preceding truth on which the exist- 
ing order is based, are always opposed to the diffusion of 
the new truth. 

But seeing that, to begin with, men do not stand still, 
but are steadily advancing to a greater recognition of the 
truth and a closer adaptation of their life to it, and secondly, 
all men in varying degrees according to their age, their 
education, and their race are capable of understanding the 
new truths, at first those who are nearest to the men who 
have attained the new truth by spiritual intuition, slowly 
and one by one, but afterward more and more quickly, pass 
over to the new truth. Thus the number of men who 
' accept the new truth becomes greater and greater, and the 
truth becomes more and more comprehensible. 

And thus more confidence is aroused in the remainder, 
who are at a less advanced stage of capacity for under- 
standing the truth. And it becomes easier for them to 
grasp it, and an increasing number accept it. 

And so the movement goes on more and more quickly, 

and on an ever-increasing scale, like a snowball, till at 

last a public opinion in harmony wnth the new truth is 

\\\ created, and then the whole mass of men is carried over all 

*^ at once by its momentum to the new truth and establishes 

a new social order in accordance with it. 

Those men who accept a new truth when it has gained a 
certain degree of acceptance, always pass over all at once 



IS WITHIN you:' i2S3 

in masses. They are like the ballast with which every ship 
is always loaded, at once to keep it upright and enable it 
to sail properly. If there were no ballast, the ship would 
not be low enough in the water, and would shift its position 
at the slightest change in its conditions. This ballast, 
which strikes one at first as superfluous and even as hinder- 
ing the progress of the vessel, is really indispensable to its 
good navigation. 

It is the same with the mass of mankind, who not indi- 
vidually, but always in a mass, under the influence of a 
new social idea pass all at once from one organization of 
life to another. This mass always hinders, by its inertia, 
frequent and rapid revolutions in the social order which 
have not been sufficiently proved by human experience. 
And it delays every truth a long while till it has stood the 
test of prolonged struggles, and has thoroughly permeated 
the consciousness of humanity. 

And that is why it is a mistake to say that because only 
a very small minority of men has assimilated Christianity 
in eighteen centuries, it must take many times as many 
centuries for all mankind to assimilate it, and that since 
that time is so far off, we who live in the present need not 
even think about it. It is a mistake, because the men at 
a lower stage of culture, the men and the nations who are 
represented as the obstacle to the realization of the Chris- 
tian order of life, are the very people who always pass over /| 
in masses all at once to any truth that has once been recog-/ f 
nized by public opinion. 

And therefore the transformation of human life, through 
which men in power will renounce it, and there will be none 
anxious to take their place, will not come only by all men 
consciously and separately assimilating the Christian con- 
ception of life. It will come when a Christian public 
opinion has arisen, so definite and easily comprehensible / \ 
as to reach the whole of the inert mass, which is not able 



254 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

to attain truth by its own intuition, and therefore is always 
under the sway of public opinion. 

Public opinion arises spontaneously and spreads for 
hundreds and thousands of years, but it has the power of 
working on men by infection, and with great rapidity gains 
a hold on great numbers of men. 

'* But," say the champions of the existing order, ^^ even 
if it is true that public opinion, when it has attained a 
certain degree of definiteness and precision, can convert 
the inert mass of men outside the Christian w^orld — the 
non-Christian races — as well as the coarse and depraved 
who are living in its midst, what proofs have we that this 
Christian public opinion has arisen and is able to replace 
force and render it unnecessary. 

"We must not give up force, by w^hich the existing order 
is maintained, and by relying on the vague and impalpable 
influence of public opinion expose Christians to the risk of 
being pillaged, murdered, and outraged in every way by the 
savages inside and outside of civilized society. 

** Since, even supported by the use of force, we can 
hardly control the non-Christian elements which are always 
ready to pour down on us and to destroy all that has been 
gained by civilization, is it likely that public opinion could 
take the place of force and render us secure ? And be- 
sides, how are we to find the moment when public opinion 
has become strong enough to be able to replace the use of 
force ? To reject the use of force and trust to public 
opinion to defend us would be as insane as to remove all 
weapons of defense in a menagerie, and then to let loose 
all the lions and tigers, relying on the fact that the animals 
seemed peaceable when kept in their cages and held in 
check by red-hot irons. And therefore people in power, 
who have been put in positions of authority by fate or by 
God, have not the right to run the risk, ruining all that has 
been gained by civilization, just because they want to try 



IS WITHIN Your 255 

an experiment to see whether public opinion is or is not 
able to replace the protection given by authority.** 

A French writer, forgotten now, Alphonse Karr, said 
somewhere, trying to show the impossibility of doing away 
with the death penalty : **Que messieurs les assassins com- 
mencent par nous donner Texemple." Often have I heard 
this bon mot repeated by men who thought that these words 
were a witty and convincing argument against the abolition 
of capital punishment. And yet all the erroneousness of 
the argument of those who consider that governments can- 
not give up the use of? force till all people are capable of 
doing the same, could not be more clearly expressed than 
it is in that epigram. 

** Let the murderers,'* say the champions of state violence, 
" set us the example by giving up murder and then we will 
give it up.** But the murderers say just the same, only 
with much more right. They say : ^' Let those who have 
undertaken to teach us and guide us set us the example of 
giving up legal murder, and then we will imitate them.** 
And they say this, not as a jest, but seriously, because it is 
the actual state of the case. 

" We cannot give up the use of violence, because we are 
surrounded by violent ruffians.** Nothing in our days 
hinders the progress of humanity and the establishment 
of the organization corresponding to its present develop- 
ment more than this false reasoning. Those in authority 
are convinced that men are only guided and only progress 
through the use of force, and therefore they confidently 
make use of it to support the existing organization. The ^ 
existing order is maintained, not by force, but by public / 
opinion, the action of which is disturbed by the use of// 
force. So that the effect of using force is to disturb and* 
to weaken the very thing it tries to maintain. 

Violence, even in the most favorable case, when it is not 
used simply for some personal aims of those in power. 



2S6 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

always punishes under the one inelastic formula of the law 
what has long before been condemned by public opinion. 
But there is this difference, that while public opinion cen- 
sures and condemns all the acts opposed to the moral law, 
including the most varied cases in its reprobation, the law 
which rests on violence only condemns and punishes a cer- 
tain very limited range of acts, and by so doing seems to 
justify all other acts of the same kind which do not come 
under its scope. 

Public opinion ever since the time of Moses has regarded 
covetousness, profligacy, and cruelty as wrong, and cen- 
sured them accordingly. And it condemns every kind of 
manifestation of covetousness, not only the appropriation of 
the property of others by force or fraud or trickery, but 
even the cruel abuse of wealth ; it condemns every form of 
profligacy, whether with concubine, slave, divorced woman, 
or even one's own wife ; it condemns every kind of cruelty, 
whether shown in blows, in ill-treatment, or in murder, not 
only of men, but even of animals. The law resting on force 
only punishes certain forms of covetousness, such as rob- 
bery and swindling, certain forms of profligacy and cruelty, 
such as conjugal infidelity, murder, and wounding. And in 
this way it seems to countenance all the manifestations of 
covetousness, profligacy, and cruelty which do not come 
under its narrow definition. 

But besides corrupting public opinion, the use of force 
leads men to the fatal conviction that they progress, not 
through the spiritual impulse which impels them to the at- 
tainment of truth and its realization in life, and which con- 

/ stitutes the only source of every progressive movement of 
humanity, but by means of violence, the very force which, 
far from leading men to truth, always carries them further 
awav from it. This is a fatal error, because it leads men to 

\ neglect the chief force underlying their life — their spiritual 
activity — and to turn all their attention and energy to the 



IS WITHIN Your 257 

j/tise of violence, which is superficial, sluggish, and most 
' generally pernicious in its action. 

They make the same mistake as men who, trying to set 
a steam engine in motion, should turn its wheels round with 
their hands, not suspecting that the underlying cause of its 
movement was the expansion of the steam, and not the 
motion of the wheels. By turning the wheels by hand and 
by levers they could only produce a semblance of move- 
ment, and meantime they would be wrenching the wheels 
and so preventing their being fit for real movement. 

That is just what people are doing who think to make 
men advance by means of external force. 

They say that the Christian life cannot be established 
without the use of violence, because there are savage races 
outside the pale of Christian societies in Africa and in 
Asia (there are some who even represent the Chinese as a 
danger to civilization), and that in the midst of Christian 
societies there are savage, corrupt, and, according to the 
new theory of heredity, congenital criminals. And vio- 
lence, they say, is necessary to keep savages and criminals 
from annihilating our civilization. 

But these savages within and without Christian society, 
who are such a terror to us, have never been subjugated by 
violence, and are not subjugated by it now. Nations have 
never subjugated other nations by violence alone. If a 
nation which subjugated another was on a lower level of 
civilization, it has never happened that it succeeded in 
introducing its organization of life by violence. On the 
contrary, it was always forced to adopt the organization of 
life existing in the conquered nation. If ever any of the 
nations conquered by force have been really subjugated, or 
even nearly so, it has always been by the action of public 
opinion, and never by violence, which only tends to drive a 
people to further rebellion. 

When whole nations have been subjugated by a new 



2S8 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

religion, and have become Christian or Mohammedan, such 
a conversion has never been brought about because the 
authorities made it obligatory (on the contrary, violence has 
much oftener acted in the opposite direction), but because 
public opinion made such a change inevitable. Nations, on 
the contrary, who have been driven by force to accept the 
faith of their conquerors have always remained antagonistic 
to it. 

It is just the same with the savage elements existing in 
the midst of our civilized societies. Neither the increased 
nor the diminished severity of punishment, nor the modifi- 
cations of prisons, nor the increase of police will increase or 
diminish the number of criminals. Their number will only 
be diminished by the change of the moral standard of 
society. No severities could put an end to duels and 
vendettas in certain districts. It spite of the number of 
Tcherkesses executed for robbery, they continue to be 
robbers from their youth up, for no maiden will marry a 
Tcherkess youth till he has given proof of his bravery by 
carrying off a horse, or at least a sheep. If men cease to 
fight duels, and the Tcherkesses cease to be robbers, it will 
not be from fear of punishment (indeed, that invests the 
crime with additional charm for youth), but through a 
i change in the moral standard of public opinion. It is the 

/same with all other crimes. Force can never suppress what / 
is sanctioned by public opinion. On the contrary, public^ 
opinion need only be in direct opposition to force to 
neutralize the whole effect of the use of force. It has 
always been so and always will be in every case of martyr, 
dom. 

What would happen if force were not used against hostile 
nations and the criminal elements of society we do not 
know. But we do know by prolonged experience that 
neither enemies nor criminals have been successfully sup- 
pressed by force. 



IS WITHIN Your 259 

And indeed how could nations be subjugated by violence 
who are led by their whole education, their traditions, and 
even their religion to see the loftiest virtue in warring with 
their oppressors and fighting for freedom ? And how are 
we to suppress by force acts committed in the midst of our 
society which are regarded as crimes by the government and 
as daring exploits by the people ? 

To exterminate such nations and such criminals by vio- 
lence is possible, and indeed is done, but to subdue them is 
impossible. 

The sole guide which directs men and nations has always 
been and is the unseen, intangible, underlying force, the 
resultant of all the spiritual forces of a certain people, or 
of all humanity, which finds its outward expression in pub- 
lic opinion. 

The use of violence only weakens this force, hinders it 
and corrupts it, and tries to replace it by another which, far 
from being conducive to the progress of humanity, is detri- 
mental to it. 

To bring under the sway of Christianity all the savage 
nations outside the pale of the Christian world — all the 
Zulus, Mandchoos, and Chinese, whom many regard as 
savages — and the savages who live in our midst, there is 
only one means. That means is the propagation among 
these nations of the Christian ideal of society, which can 
only be realized by a Christian life, Christian actions, and 
Christian examples. And meanwhile, though this is the one 
only means of gaining a hold over the people who have 
remained non-Christian, the men of our day set to work in 
the directly opposite fashion to attain this result. 

To bring under the sway of Christianity savage nations 
who do not attack us and whom we have therefore no excuse 
for oppressing, we ought before all things to leave them in 
peace, and in case we need or wish to enter into closer 
relations with them, we ought only to influence them by 



26o *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Christian manners and Christian teaching, setting them the 
example of the Christian virtues of patience, meekness, 
endurance, purity, brotherhood, and love. Instead of that 
we begin by establishing among them new markets for our 
commerce, with the sole aim of our own profit ; then we 
appropriate their lands, /. ^., rob them ; then we sell them 
spirits, tobacco, and opium, /. <?., corrupt them ; then we 
establish our morals among them, teach them the use of 
violence and new methods of destruction, /. e., we teach them 
nothing but the animal law of strife, below which man can- 
not sink, and we do all we can to conceal from them all 
that is Christian in us. After this we send some dozens of 
missionaries prating to them of the hypocritical absurdities 
of the Church, and then quote the failure of our efforts to 
turn the heathen to Christianity as an incontrovertible proof 
of the impossibility of applying the truths of Christianity in 
practical life. 

It is just the same with the so-called criminals living in 
our midst. To bring these people under the sway of Chris- 
tianity there is one only means, that is, the Christian social 
ideal, which can only be realized among them by true 
Christian teaching and supported by a true example of the 
Christian life. And to preach this Christian truth and to 
support it by Christian example we set up among them 
prisons, guillotines, gallows, preparations for murder ; we 
diffuse among the common herd idolatrous superstitions to 
stupefy them ; we sell them spirits, tobacco, and opium to 
brutalize them ; we even organize legalized prostitution ; 
we give land to those who do not need it ; we make a dis- 
play of senseless luxury in the midst of suffering poverty ; 
we destroy the possibility of anything like a Christian public 
opinion, and studiously try to suppress what Christian pub- 
lic opinion is existing. And then, after having ourselves 
assiduously corrupted men, we shut them up like wild beasts 
in places from which they cannot escape, and where they 



IS WITHIN Your 261 

become still more brutalized, or else we kill them. And 
these very men whom we have corrupted and brutalized by 
every means, we bring forward as a proof that one cannot 
deal with criminals except by brute force. 

We are just like ignorant doctors who put a man, recov- 
ering from illness by the force of nature, into the most 
unfavorable conditions of hygiene, and dose him with the 
most deleterious drugs, and then assert triumphantly that 
their hygiene and their drugs saved his life, when the 
patient would have been well long before if they had left 
him alone. 

Violence, which is held up as the means of supporting 
the Christian organization of life, not only fails to produce 
that effect, it even hinders the social organization of life 
from being what it might and ought to be. The social 
organization is as good as it is not as a result of force, but 
in spite of it. 

And therefore the champions of the existing order are 
mistaken in arguing that since, even with the aid of force, 
the bad and non-Christian elements of humanity can hardly 
be kept from attacking us, the abolition of the use of force 
and the substitution of public opinion for it would leave 
humanity quite unprotected. 

They are mistaken, because force does not protect human- 
ity^ but, on the contrary, deprives it of the only possible 
means of really protecting itself, that is, the establishment 
and diffusion of a Christian public opinion. Only by the 
suppression of violence will a Christian public opinion 
cease to be corrupted, and be enabled to be diffused with- 
out hindrance, and men will then turn their efforts in the 
spiritual direction by which alone they can advance. 

" But how are we to cast off the visible tangible pro- 
tection of an armed policeman, and trust to something so 
intangible as public opinion ? Does it yet exist ? More- 
over, the condition of things in which we are living now, 



262 *< THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

we know, good or bad ; we know its shortcomings and are 
used to it, we know what to do, and how to behave under 
present conditions. But what will happen when we give 
it up and trust ourselves to something invisible and intan- 
gible, and altogether unknown ?" 

The unknown world on which they are entering in 
renouncing their habitual ways of life appears itself as 
dreadful to them. It is all very well to dread the unknown 
when our habitual position is sound and secure. But our 
position is so far from being secure that we know, beyond 
all doubt, that we are standing on the brink of a precipice. 

If we must be afraid let us be afraid of what is really 
alarming, and not what we imagine as alarming. 

Fearing to make the effort to detach ourselves from our 
perilous position because the future is not fully clear to us, 
we are like passengers in a foundering- ship who, through 
being afraid to trust themselves to the boat which would 
carry them to the shore, shut themselves up in the cabin 
and refuse to come out of it ; or like sheep, who, terrified 
by their barn being on fire, huddle in a corner and do not 
go out of the wide-open door. 

We are standing on the threshold of the murderous war 
of social revolution, terrific in its miseries, beside which, as 
those who are preparing it tell us, the horrors of 1793 will 
be child's play. And can we talk of the danger threaten- 
ing us from the warriors of Dahomey, the Zulus, and such, 
who live so far away and are not dreaming of attacking us, 
and from some thousands of swindlers, thieves, and 
murderers, brutalized and corrupted by ourselves, whose 
number is in no way lessened by all our sentences, prisons, 
and executions ? 

Moreover this dread of the suppression of the visible 
protection of the policeman is essentially a sentiment of 
townspeople, that is, of people who are living in abnormal 
and artificial conditions. People living in natural condi- 



IS WITHIN you:* 263 

tions of life, not in towns, but in the midst of nature, and 
carrying on the struggle with nature, live without this pro- 
tection and know how little force can protect us from the 
real dangers with which we are surrounded. There is 
something sickly in this dread, which is essentially depend- 
ent on the artificial conditions in which many of us live 
and have been brought up. 

A doctor, a specialist in insanity, told a story that one 
summer day when he was leaving the asylum, the lunatics 
accompanied him to the street door. ^^Come for a walk in 
the town with me ? '* the doctor suggested to them. The 
lunatics agreed, and a small band followed the doctor. 
But the further they proceeded along the street where 
healthy people were freely moving about, the more timid 
they became, and they pressed closer and closer to the 
doctor, hindering him from walking. At last they all be- 
gan to beg him to take them back to the asylum, to their 
meaningless but customary way of life, to their keepers, to 
blows, strait waistcoats, and solitary cells. 

This is just how men of to-day huddle in terror and draw 
back to their irrational manner of life, their factories, law 
courts, prisons, executions, and wars, when Christianity calls 
them to liberty, to the free, rational life of the future com- 
ing age. 

People ask, ** How will our security be guaranteed when 
the existing organization is suppressed ? What precisely 
will the new organization be that is to replace it ? So long 
as we do not know precisely how our life will be organized, 
we will not stir a step forward." 

An explorer going to an unknown country might as well 
ask for a detailed map of the country before he would start. 

If a man, before he passed from one stage to another, 
could know his future life in full detail, he would have 
nothing to live for. It is the same with the life of human- 
ity. If it had a programme of the life which awaited it 



264 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

before entering a new stage, it would be the surest sign 
that it was not living, nor advancing, but simply rotating in 
the same place. 

The conditions of the new order of life cannot be known 
by us because we have to create them by our own labors. 
That is all that life is, to learn the unknown, and to adapt 
our actions to this new knowledge. 

That is the life of each individual man, and that is the 
life of human societies and of humanity. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF LIFE HAS ALREADY 
ARISEN IN OUR SOCIETY, AND WILL INFALLIBLY PUT 
AN END TO THE PRESENT ORGANIZATION OF OUR LIFE 
BASED ON FORCE — WHEN THAT WILL BE. 

The Condition and Organization of our Society are Terrible, but they 
Rest only on Public Opinion, and can be Destroyed by it — Already 
Violence is Regarded from a Different Point of View ; the Number of 
those who are Ready to Serve the Government is Diminishing ; and 
even the Servants of Government are Ashamed of their Position, and 
so often Do Not Perform their Duties — These Facts are all Signs of 
the Rise of a Public Opinion, which Continually Growing will Lead to 
No One being Willing to Enter Government Service — Moreover, it 
Becomes More and More Evident that those Offices are of No Practical 
Use — Men already Begin to Understand the Futility of all Institutions 
Based on Violence, and if a Few already Understand it, All will One 
Day Understand it — The Day of Deliverance is Unknown, but it 
Depends on Men Themselves, on how far Each Man Lives According 
to the Light that is in Him. 

The position of Christian humanity with its prisons, 
galleys, gibbets, its factories and accumulation of capital, 
its taxes, churches, gin-palaces, licensed brothels, its ever- 
increasing armament and its millions of brutalized men, 
ready, like chained dogs, to attack anyone against whom 



IS WITHIN Your 265 

their master incites them, would be terrible indeed if it 
were the product of violence, but it is pre-eminently the 
product of public opinion. And what has been established 
by public opinion can be destroyed by public opinion — and, 
indeed, is being destroyed by public opinion. 

Money lavished by hundreds of millions, tens of millions 
of disciplined troops, weapons of astounding destructive 
power, all organizations carried to the highest point of 
perfection, a whole army of men charged with the task of 
deluding and hypnotizing the people, and all this, by means 
of electricity which annihilates distance, under the direct 
control of men who regard such an organization of society 
not only as necessary for profit, but even for self-preserya-. 
tion, and therefore exert every effort of their ingenuity to 
preserve it — what an invincible power it would seem ! 
And yet we need only imagine for a moment what will 
really inevitably come to pass, that is, the Christian social 
standard replacing the heathen social standard and estab- 
lished with the same power and universality, and the 
majority of men as much ashamed of taking any part in 
violence or in profiting by it, as they are to-day of thiev- 
ing, swindling, begging, and cowardice ; and at once we 
see the whole of this complex, and seemingly powerful 
organization of society falls into ruins of itself without a 
struggle. 

And to bring this to pass, nothing new need be brought 
before men's minds. Only let the mist, which veils from 
men's eyes the true meaning of certain acts of violence, 
pass away, and the Christian public opinion which is spring- 
ing up would overpower the extinct public opinion which 
permitted and justified acts of violence. People need only 
come to be as much ashamed to do deeds of violence, to 
assist in them or to profit by them, as they now are of 
being, or being reputed a swindler, a thief, a coward, or a 
beggar. And already this change is beginning to take 



266 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

place. We do not notice it just as we do not notice the 
movement of the earth, because we are moved together 
with everything around us. 

It is true that the organization of society remains in its 
principal features just as much an organization based on 
violence as it was one thousand years ago, and even in some 
respects, especially in the preparation for war and in war 
itself, it appears still more brutal. But the rising Christian 
ideal, which must at a certain stage of development replace 
the heathen ideal of life, already makes its influence felt. 
A dead tree stands apparently as firmly as ever — it may even 
seem firmer because it is harder — but it is rotten at the 
core, and soon must fall. It is just so with the present 
order of society, based on force. The external aspect is 
unchanged. There is the same division of oppressors and 
oppressed, but their view of the significance and dignity of 
their respective positions is no longer what it once was. 

The oppressors, that is, those who take part in govern- 
ment, and those who profit by oppression, that is, the rich, 
no longer imagine, as they once did, that they are the elect 
of the world, and that they constitute the ideal of human 
happiness and greatness, to attain which was once the 
highest aim of the oppressed. 

Very often now it is not the oppressed who strive to 
attain the position of the oppressors, and try to imitate 
them, but on the contrary the oppressors who voluntarily 
abandon the advantages of their position, prefer the con- 
dition of the oppressed, and try to resemble them in the 
simplicity of their life. 

Not to speak of the duties and occupations now openly 
despised, such as that of spy, agent of secret police, money- 
lender, and publican, there are a great number of professions 
formerly regarded as honorable, such as those of police 
officials, courtiers, judges, and administrative functionaries, 
clergymen, military officers, speculators, and bankers, which 



IS WITHIN Your 267 

are no longer considered desirable positions by everyone, 
and are even despised by a special circle of the most 
respected people. There are already men who voluntarily 
abandon these professions which were once reckoned irre- 
proachable, and prefer less lucrative callings which are in 
no way connected with the use of force. 

And there are even rich men who, not through religious 
sentiment, but simply through special sensitiveness to the 
social standard that is springing up, relinquish their in- 
herited property, believing that a man can only justly con- 
sume what he has gained by his own labor. 

The position of a government official or of a rich man is 
no longer, as it once was, and still is among non-Christian 
peoples, regarded as necessarily honorable and deserving of 
respect, and under the special blessing of God. The most 
delicate and moral people (they are generally also the most 
cultivated) avoid such positions and prefer more humble 
callings that are not dependent on the use of force. 

The best of our young people, at the age when they are 
still uncorrupted by life and are choosing a career, prefer 
the calling of doctor, engineer, teacher, artist, writer, or 
even that of simple farmer living on his own labor, to legal, 
administrative, clerical, and military positions in the pay of 
government, or to an idle existence living on their incomes. 

Monuments and memorials in these days are mostly not 
erected in honor of government dignitaries, or generals, or 
still less of rich men, but rather of artists, men of science, 
and inventors, persons who have nothing in common with 
the government, and often have even been in conflict with 
it. They are the men whose- praises are celebrated in 
poetry, who are honored by sculpture and received with 
triumphant jubilations. 

The best men of our day are all striving for such places 
of honor. Consequently the class from which the wealthy 
and the government officials are drawn grows less in num- 



268 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

j\bev and lower in intelligence and education, and still more 
' Mn moral qualities. So that nowadays the wealthy class 
and men at the head of government do not constitute, as 
they did in former days, the eVife of society ; on the con- 
trary, they are inferior to the middle class. 

In Russia and Turkey as in America and France, how- 
ever often the government change its officials, the majority 
of them are self-seeking and corrupt, of so low a moral 
standard that they do not even come up the elementary 
requirements of common honesty expected by the govern- 
ment. One may often nowadays hear from persons in 
authority the naive complaint that the best people are 
always, by some strange — as it seems to them — fatality, to 
be found in the camp of the opposition. As though men 
were to complain that those who accepted the office of 
hangman were — by some strange fatality — all persons of 
very little refinement or beauty of character. 

The most cultivated and refined people of our society are 
not nowadays to be found among the very rich, as used 
formerly to be the rule. The rich are mostly coarse money 
grubbers, absorbed only, in increasing their hoard, generally 
by dishonest means, or else the degenerate heirs of such 
money grubbers, who, far from playing any prominent part 
in society, are mostly treated with general contempt. 

And besides the fact that the class from which the 
servants of government and the wealthy are drawn grows 
less in number and lower in caliber, they no longer them- 
selves attach the same importance to their positions as they 
once did ; often they are ashamed of the ignominy of their 
calling and do not perform the duties they are bound to 
perform in their position. Kings and emperors scarcely 
govern at all ; they scarcely ever decide upon an internal 
reform or a new departure in foreign politics. They mostly 
leave the decision of such questions to government institu- 
tions or to public opinion. All their duties are reduced to 



IS WITHIN Your 269 

representing the unity and majesty of government. And 
even this duty they perform less and less successfully. 
The majority of them do not keep up their old unapproach- 
able majesty, but become more and more democratized and 
even vulgarized, casting aside the external prestige that 
remained to them, and thereby destroying the very thing it 
was their function to maintain. 

It is just the same with the army. Military officers of 
the highest rank, instead of encouraging in their soldiers 
the brutality and ferocity necessary for their work, diffuse 
education among the soldiers, inculcate humanity, and often 
even themselves share the socialistic ideas of the masses 
and denounce war. In the last plots against the Russian 
Government many of the conspirators were in the army. 
And the number of the disaffected in the army is always 
increasing. And it often happens (there was a case, indeed, 
within the last few days) that when called upon to quell 
/disturbances they refuse to fire upon the people. Military 
exploits are openly reprobated by the military themselves, 
and are often the subject of jests among them. 

It is the same with judges and public prosecutors. The 
judges, whose duty it is to judge and condemn criminals, 
conduct the proceedings so as to whitewash them as far as 
possible. So that the Russian Government, to procure the 
condemnation of those whom they want to punish, never 
intrust them to the ordinary tribunals, but have them tried 
before a court martial, which is only a parody of justice. 
The prosecutors themselves often refuse to proceed, and 
even when they do proceed, often in spite of the law% really 
defend those they ought to be accusing. The learned 
jurists whose business it is to justify the violence of 
authority, are more and more disposed to deny the right of 
punishment and to replace it by theories of irresponsibility 
and even of moral insanity, proposing to deal with those 
they call criminals by medical treatment only. 



270 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Jailers and overseers of galleys generally become the 
champions of those whom they ought to torture. Police 
officers and detectives are continually assisting the escape 
of those they ought to arrest. The clergy preach tolerance, 
and even sometimes condemn the use of force, and the more 
educated among them try in their sermons to avoid the very 
deception which is the basis of their position and which it 
is their duty to support. Executioners refuse to perform 
their functions, so that in Russia the death penalty cannot 
be carried out for want of executioners. And in spite of 
all the advantages bestowed on these men, who are selected 
from convicts, there is a constantly diminishing number of 
volunteers for the post. Governors, police officials, tax 
collectors often have compassion on the people and try to 
find pretexts for not collecting the tax from them. The 
rich are not at ease in spending their wealth only on them- 
selves, and lavish it on works of public utility. Land- 
owners build schools and hospitals on their property, and 
some even give up the ownership of their land and transfer 
it to the cultivators, or establish communities upon it. 
Millowners and manufacturers build hospitals, schools, 
savings banks, asylums, and dwellings for their work- 
people. Some of them form co-operative associations in 
which they have shares on the same terms as the others. 
Capitalists expend a part of their capital on educational, 
artistic, philanthropic, and other public institutions. And 
many, who are not equal to parting with their wealth in 
their lifetime, leave it in their wills to public institutions. 

All these phenomena might seem to be mere exceptions, 
except that they can all be referred to one common cause. 
Just as one might fancy the first leaves on the budding 
trees in April were exceptional if we did not know that they 
all have a common cause, the spring, and that if we see the 
branches on some trees shooting and turning green, it is 
certain that it will soon be so with all. 



/S WITHIN Your 271 

So it is with the manifestation of the Christian standard 
of opinion on force and all that is based on force. If this 
standard already influences some, the most impressionable, 
and impels each in his own sphere to abandon advantages 
based on the use of force, then its influence will extend 
further and further till it transforms the whole order of 
men's actions and puts it into accord with the Christian ideal 
which is already a living force in the vanguard of humanity. 

And if there are now rulers, who do not decide on 
any step on their own authority, who try to be as unlike 
monarchs, and as like plain mortals as possible, who state 
their readiness to give up their prerogatives and become 
simply the first citizens of a republic ; if there are already 
soldiers who realize all the sin and harm of war, and are 
not willing to fire on men either of their own or a foreign 
country ; judges and prosecutors who do not like to try 
and to condemn criminals ; priests, who abjure deception ; 
tax-gatherers who try to perform as little as they can of 
their duties, and rich men renouncing their wealth — then 
the same thing will inevitably happen to other rulers, other 
soldiers, other judges, priests, tax-gatherers, and rich men. 
And when there are no longer men willing to fill these 
offices, these offices themselves will disappear too. 

But this is not the only way in which public opinion is 
leading men to the abolition of the prevailing order and 
the substitution of a new order. As the positions based on 
the rule of force become less attractive and fewer men are 
found willing to fill them, the more will their uselessness 
be apparent. 

Everywhere throughout the Christian world the same 
rulers, and the same governments, the same armies, the 
same law courts, the same tax gatherers, the same priests, 
the same rich men, landowners, manufacturers, and capital- 
ists, as ever, but the attitude of the world to them, and 
their attitude to thertiselves is altogether changed. 



^72 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

The same sovereigns have still the same audiences and 
interviews, hunts and banquets, and balls and uniforms ; 
there are the same diplomats and the same deliberations 
on alliances and wars ; there are still the same parliaments, 
with the same debates on the Eastern question and Africa, 
on treaties and violations of treaties, and Home Rule and 
the eight-hour day ; and one set of ministers replacing 
another in the same way, and the same speeches and the 
same incidents. But for men who observe how one news- 
paper article has more effect on the position of affairs than 
dozens of royal audiences or parliamentary sessions, it 
becomes more and more evident that these audiences and 
interviews and debates in parliaments do not direct the 
course of affairs, but something independent of all that, 
which cannot be concentrated in one place. 

The same generals and officers and soldiers, and cannons 
and fortresses, and reviews and maneuvers, but no war 
breaks out. One year, ten, twenty years pass by. And it 
becomes less and less possible to rely on the army for the 
pacification of riots, and more and more evident, conse- 
quently, that generals, and officers, and soldiers are only 
figures in solemn processions — objects of amusement for 
governments — a sort of immense — and far too expensive — 
C07'ps de ballet. 

The same lawyers and judges, and the same assizes, but 
it becomes more and more evident that the civil courts 
decide cases on the most diverse grounds, but regardless 
of justice, and that criminal trials are quite senseless, be- 
cause the punishments do not attain the objects aimed at 
by the judges themselves. These institutions therefore 
serve no other purpose than to provide a means of liveli- 
hood for men who are not capable of doing anything more 
useful. 

The same priests and archbishops and churches and 
synods, but it becomes more and more evident that they 



/s WITHIN you:' ^73 

have long ago ceased to believe in what they preach, and 
therefore they can convince no one of the necessity of 
believing what they don't believe themselves. 

The same tax collectors, but they are less and less capa- 
ble of taking men's property from them by force, and it 
becomes more and more evident that people can collect all 
that is necessary by voluntary subscription without their 
aid. 

The same rich men, but it becomes more and more evi- 
dent that they can only be of use by ceasing to administer 
their property in person and giving up to society the whole 
or at least a part of their wealth. 

And when all this has become absolutely evident to 
everyone, it will be natural for men to ask themselves : 
'^ But why should we keep and maintain all these kings, 
emperors, presidents, and members of all sorts of senates 
and ministries, since nothing comes of all their debates and 
audiences ? Wouldn't it be better, as some humorist sug- 
gested, to make a queen of india-rubber ? " 

And what good to us are these armies with their generals 
and bands and horses and drums? And what need is 
there of them when there is no war, and no one wants to 
make war ? and if there were a war, other nations would 
not let us gain any advantage from it ; while the soldiers 
refuse to fire on their fellow-countrymen. 

And what is the use of these lawyers and judges who 
don't decide civil cases with justice and recognize them- 
selves the uselessness of punishments in criminal cases? 

And what is the use of tax collectors who collect the 
taxes unwillingly, when it is easy to raise all that is wanted 
without them ? 

What is the use of the clergy, who don't believe in what 
they preach ? 

And what is the use of capital in the hands of private 
persons, when it can only be of use as the property of all ? 



^74 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

And when once people have asked themselves these 
questions they cannot help coming to some decision and 
ceasing to support all these institutions which are no 
longer of use. 

But even before those who support these institutions 
decide to abolish them, the men who occupy these posi- 
tions will be reduced to the necessity of throwing them up. 

Public opinion more and more condemns the use of force, 
and therefore men are less and less willing to fill positions 
which rest on the use of force, and if they do occupy them, 
are less and less able to make use of force in them. And 
hence they must become more and more superfluous. 

I once took part in Moscow in a religious meeting which 
used to take place generally in the week after Easter near 
the church in the Ohotny Row. A little knot of some 
twenty men were collected together on the pavement, 
engaged in serious religious discussion. At the same time 
there was a kind of concert going on in the buildings of 
the Court Club in the same street, and a police officer 
noticing the little group collected near the church sent a 
mounted policeman to disperse it. It was absolutely un- 
necessary for the officer to disperse it. A group of twenty 
men was no obstruction to anyone, but he had been stand- 
ing there the whole morning, and he wanted to do some- 
thing. The policeman, a young fellow, with a resolute 
flourish of his right arm and a clink of his saber, came up 
to us and commanded us severely : ** Move on ! what's 
this meeting about ? *' Everyone looked at the policeman, 
and one of the speakers, a quiet man in a peasant's dress, 
answered with a calm and gracious air, " We are speaking 
of serious matters, and there is no need for us to move on ; 
you would do better, young man, to get off your horse and 
listen. It might do you good"; and turning round he 
continued his discourse. The policeman turned his horse 
and went off without a word. 



IS WITHIN you:' 275 

That is just what should be done in all cases of violence. 

The officer was bored, he had nothing to do. He had 
been put, poor fellow, in a position in which he had no 
choice but to give orders. He was shut off from all human 
existence ; he could do nothing but superintend and give 
orders, and give orders and superintend, though his super- 
intendence and his orders served no useful purpose what- 
ever. And this is the position in which all these unlucky 
rulers, ministers, members of parliament, governors, 
generals, officers, archbishops, priests, and even rich men 
find themselves to some extent already, and will find them- 
selves altogether as time goes on. They can do nothing 
but give orders, and they give orders and send their mes- 
sengers, as the officer sent the policeman, to interfere with 
people. And because the people they hinder turn to 
them and request them not to interfere, they fancy they 
are very useful indeed. 

But the time will come and is coming when it will be 
perfectly evident to everyone that they are not of any use 
at all, and only a hindrance, and those whom they interfere 
with will say gently and quietly to them, like my friend in 
the street meeting, ^* Pray don't interfere with us." And 
all the messengers and those who send them too will be 
obliged to follow this good advice, that is to say, will leave 
off galloping about, with their arms akimbo, interfering 
with people, and getting off their horses and removing their 
spurs, will listen to what is being said, and mixing with 
others, will take their place with them in some real human 
work. 

The time will come and is inevitably coming when all 
institutions based on force will disappear through their 
uselessness, stupidity, and even inconvenience becoming 
obvious to all. 

The time must come when the men of our modern world 
who fill offices based upon violence will find themselves in 



2 76 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

the position of the emperor in Andersen's tale of ^* The 
Emperor's New Clothes," when the child seeing the 
emperor undressed, cried in all simp-icity, ^* Look, he is 
naked ! " And then all the rest, who had seen him and 
said nothing, could not help recognizing it too. 

The story is that there was once an emperor, very fond 
of new clothes. And to him came two tailors, who prom- 
ised to make him some extraordinary clothes. The 
emperor engages them and they begin to sew at them, but 
they explain that the clothes have the extraordinary prop- 
erty of remaining invisible to anyone who is unfit for his 
position. The courtiers come to look at the tailors' work 
and see nothing, for the men are plying their needles in 
empty space. But remembering the extraordinary property 
of the clothes, they all declare they see them and are loud 
in their admiration. The emperor does the same himself. 
The day of the procession comes in which the emperor is 
to go out in his new clothes. The emperor undresses and 
puts on his new clothes, that is to say, remains naked, and 
naked he walks through the town. But remembering the 
magic property of the clothes, no one ventures to say that 
he has nothing on till a little child cries out : " Look, he is 
naked ! " 

This will be exactly the situation of all who continue 
through inertia to fill offices which have long become use- 
less directly someone who has no interest in concealing 
their uselessness exclaims in all simplicity : *^ But these 
people have been of no use to anyone for a long time 
past ! '* 

The condition of Christian humanity with its fortresses, 
cannons, dynamite, guns, torpedoes, prisons, gallows, 
churches, factories, customs offices, and palaces is really 
terrible. But^still cannons and guns will not fire them- 
selves, prisons will not shut men up of themselves, gallows 
will not hang them, churches will not delude them, nor 



IS WITHIN Your 277 

customs offices hinder them, and palaces and factories are 
not built nor kept up of themselves. All those things are the 
work of men. If men come to understand that they ought 
not to do these things, then they will cease to be. And 
already they are beginning to understand it. Though all do 
not understand it yet, the advanced guard understand and 
the rest will follow them. And the advanced guard cannot 
cease to understand what they have once understood ; and 
what they understand the rest not only can but must 
inevitably understand hereafter. 

So that the prophecy that the time will come when men 
will be taught of God, will learn war no more, will beat 
their swords into plowshares and their spears into reap- 
ing-hooks, which means, translating it into our language, 
the fortresses, prisons, barracks, palaces, and churches will 
remain empty, and all the gibbets and guns and cannons 
will be left unused, is no longer a dream, but the definite 
new form of life to which mankind is approaching with 
ever-increasing rapidity. 

But when will it be ? 

Eighteen hundred years ago to this question Christ 
answered that the end of the world (that is, of the pagan 
organization of life) shall come when the tribulation of men 
is greater than it has ever been, and when the Gospel of 
the kingdom of God, that is, the possibility of a new organ- 
ization of life, shall be preached in the world unto all 
nations. (Matt. xxiv. 3-28.) But of that day and hour 
knoweth no man but the Father only (Matt. xxiv. z~^)^ 
said Christ. For it may come any time, in such an hour as 
ye think not. 

To the question when this hour cometh Christ answers 
that we cannot know, but just because we cannot know 
when that hour is coming we ought to be always ready to 
meet it, just as the master ought to watch who guards his 
house from thieves, as the virgins ought to watch with 



278 - THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

lamps alight for the bridegroom ; and further, we ought to 
work with all the powers given us to bring that hour to 
pass, as the servants ought to work with the talents 
intrusted to them. (Matt. xxiv. 43, and xxvi. 13, 14-30.) 

And there could be no answer but this one. Men can- 
not know when the day and the hour of the kingdom of 
God will come, because its coming depends on themselves 
alone. 

The answer is like that of the wise man who, when asked 
whether it was far to the town, answered, *' Walk ! " 

How can we tell whether it is far to the goal which 
humanity is approaching, when we do not know how men 
are going toward it, while it depends on them whether they 
go or do not go, stand still, slacken their pace or hasten it ? 

All we can know is what we who make up mankind 
ought to do, and not to do, to bring about the coming of 
the kingdom of God. And that we all know. Aad we need 
only each begin to do what we ought to do, we need only 
each live with all the light that is in us, to bring about at 
once the promised kingdom of God to which every man's 
heart is yearning. 

CHAPTER XII. 

CONCLUSION — REPENT YE, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
IS AT HAND. 

I. Chance Meeting with a Train Carrying Soldiers to Restore Order 
Among the Famishing Peasants — Reason of the Expedition — How the 
Decisions of the Higher Authorities are Enforced in Cases of Insub- 
ordination on Part of the Peasants — What Happened at Orel, as an 
Example of How the Rights of the Propertied Classes are Maintained 
by Murder and Torture — All the Privileges of the Wealthy are Based 
on Similar Acts of Violence. 

2. The Elements that Made up the Force Sent to Toula, and the Con- 
duct of the Men Composing it — How these Men Could Carry Out such 
Acts — The Explanation is Not to be Found in Ignorance, Conviction, 



IS WITHIN YOUr 279 

Cruelty, Heartlessness, or Want of Moral Sense — They do these 
Things Because they are Necessary to Support the Existing Order, 
which they Consider it Every Man's Duty to Support — The Basis of 
this Conviction that the Existing Order is Necessary and Inevitable — 
In the Upper Classes this Conviction is Based on the Advantages of 
the Existing Order for Themselves — But what Forces Men of the 
Lower Classes to Believe in the Immutability of the Existing Order, 
from which they Derive no Advantage, and which they Aid in Main- 
taining, P'acts Contrary to their Conscience ? — This is the Result of the 
Lower Classes being Deluded by the Upper, Both as to the Inevi- 
tability of the Existing Order and the Lawfulness of the Acts of 
Violence Needed to Maintain it — Deception in General — Special Form 
of Deception in Regard to Military Service — Conscription. 

3. How can Men Allow that Murder is Permissible while they Preach 
Principles of Morality, and How can they Allow of the Existence in 
their Midst of a Military Organization of Physical Force which is a 
Constant Menace to Public Security ? — It is only Allowed by the 
Upper Classes, who Profit by this Organization, Because their Privi- 
leges are Maintained by it — The Upper Classes Allow it, and the 
Lower Classes Carry it into EiTect in Spite of their Consciousness of 
the Immorality of the Deeds of Violence, the More Readily Because 
Through the Arrangements of the Government the Moral Responsi- 
bility for such Deeds is Divided among a Great Number of Partici- 
pants in it, and Everyone Throws the Responsibility on Someone 
Else — Moreover, the Sense of Moral Responsibility is Lost through 
the Delusion of Inequality, and the Consequent Intoxication of Power 
on the Part of Superiors, and Servility on the Part of Inferiors — The 
Condition of these Men, Acting against the Dictates of their Con- 
science, is Like that of Hypnotized Subjects Acting by Suggestion — 
The Difference between this Obedience to Government Suggestion, 
and Obedience to Public Opinion, and to the Guidance of Men of a 
Higher Moral Sense — The Existing Order of Society, which is the 
Result of an Extinct Public Opinion and is Inconsistent with the Al- 
ready Existing Public Opinion of the Future, is only Maintained by the 
Stupefaction of the Conscience, Produced Spontaneously by Self-inter- 
est in the Upper Classes and Through Hypnotizing in the Lower 
Classes — The Conscience or the Common Sense of such Men may 
Awaken ,and there are Examples of its Sudden Awakening, so that one 
can Never be Sure of the Deeds of Violence they are Prepared for-— It 
Depends Entirely on the Point which the Sense of the Unlawfulness of 
Acts of Violence has Reached, and this Sense may Spontaneously 



28o " l^HE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Awaken in Men, or may be Reawakened by the Influence of ]\Ien of 
more Conscience. 

4. Everything Depends on the Strength of the Consciousness of Chris- 
tian Truths in Each Individual Man — The Leading Men of Modern" 
Times, however, do not Think it Necessary to Preach or Practice the 
Truths of Christianity, but Regard the Modification of the External 
Conditions of Existence within the Limit Imposed by Governments as 
Sufficient to Reform the Life of Humanity — On this Scientific Theory 
of Hypocrisy, which has Replaced the Hypocrisy of Religion, Men of 
the Wealthy Classes Base their Justification of their Position — Through 
this Hypocrisy they can Enjoy the Exclusive Privileges of their Posi- 
tion by Force and Fraud, and Still Pretend to be Christians to One 
Another and be Easy in their Minds — This Hypocrisy Allows Men 
who Preach Christianity to Take Part in Institutions Based on Vio- 
lence — No External Reformation of Life will Render it Less Miser- 
able — Its Misery the Result of Disunion Caused by Following Lies, not 
the Truth — Union only Possible in Truth — Hypocrisy Hinders this 
Union, since Hypocrites Conceal from themselves and Others the 
Truth they Know — Hypocrisy Turns all Reforms of Life to Evil — ^ 
Hypocrisy Distorts the Idea of Good and Evil, and so Stands in the 
Way of the Progress of Men toward Perfection^Undisguised Crimi- 
nals and Malefactors do Less Harm than those w^ho Live by Legalized 
Violence, Disguised by Hypocrisy — All Men Feel the Iniquity of our 
Life, and would Long Ago have Transformed it if it had not been Dis- 
simulated by Hypocrisy — But Seem to have Reached the Extreme 
Limits of Hypocrisy, and we Need only Make an Effort of Conscience 
to Awaken as from a Nightmare to a Different Reality. 

5. Can Man Make this Effort? — x\ccording to the Hypocritical 
Theory of the Day, Man is not Free to Transform his Life — Man is 
not Free in his Actions, but he is Free to Admit or to Deny the Truth 
he Knows — When Truth is Once Admitted, it Becomes the Basis of 
Action — Man's Threefold Relation to Truth — The Reason of the Ap- 
parent Insolubility of the Problem of Free Will — Man's Freedom Con- 
sists in the Recognition of the Truth Revealer' to him. There is no 
Other Freedom — Recognition of Truth Gives Freedom, and Shows the 
Path Along which, Willingly or Unwillingly by Mankind, Man Must 
Advance — The Recognition of Truth and Real Freedom Enables Man 
to Share in the Work of God, not as the Slave, but as the Creator of 
Life — Men Need only Make the Effort to Renounce all Thought of 
Bettering the External Conditions of Life and Bend all their Efforts to 
Recognizing and Preaching the Truth they Know, to put an End to the 



IS WITHIN YOUy 281 

Existing Miserable State of Things, and to Enter upon the Kingdom 
of God so far as it is yet Accessible to Man — All that is Needed is to 
Make an End of Lying and Hypocrisy — But then what Awaits us in 
the Future ? — What will Happen to Humanity if Men Follow the Dic- 
tates of their Conscience, and how can Life go on with the Conditions 
of Civilized Life to which we are Accustomed ? — All Uneasiness on 
these Points may be Removed by the Reflection that Nothing True and 
Good can be Destroyed by the Realization of Truth, but will only be 
Freed from the Alloy of Falsehood. 

6. Our Life has Reached the Extreme Limit of Misery and Cannot be 
Improved by any Systems of Organization — All our Life and all our 
Institutions are Quite Meaningless — Are we Doing what God Wills of 
us by Preserving our Privileges and Duties to Government? — W^e are 
put in this Position not Because the W^orld is so Made and it is Inevi- 
table, but Because we Wish it to be so. Because it is to the Advantage of 
Some of us — Our Conscience is in Opposition to our Position and all 
our Conduct, and the Way Out of the Contradiction is to be Found in 
the Recognition of the Christian Truth : Do Not unto Others what 
you Would Not they should Do unto You — As our Duties to Self 
Must be Subordinated to our Duties to Others, so Must our Duties to 
Others be Subordinated to our Duties to God — The Only Way Out of 
our Position Lies, if not in Renouncing our Position and our Privileges, 
at Least in Recognizing our Sin and not Justifying it nor Disguising it — 
The Only Object of Life is to Learn the Truth and to Act on it — Ac- 
ceptance of the Position and of State Action Deprives Life of all Ob- 
ject — It is God's Will that we should Serve Him in our Life, that is, 
that we should Bring About the Greatest Unity of all that has Life, a 
Unity only Possible in Truth. 

I WAS finishing this book, which I had been working at 
for two years, when I happened on the 9th of September 
to be traveling by rail through the governments of Toula 
and Riazan, where the peasants were starving last year 
and where the famine is even more severe now. At one of 
the railway stations my train passed an extra train which 
was taking a troop of soldiers under the conduct of the 
governor of the province, together with muskets, cartridges, 
and rods, to flog and murder these same famishing peasants. 

The punishment of flogging by way of carrying the 



2S2 << THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

decrees of the authorities into effect has been more and 
more frequently adopted of late in Russia, in spite of the 
fact that corporal punishment was abolished by law thirty 
years ago. 

I had heard of this, I had even read in the newspapers 
of the fearful floggings which had been inflicted in Tcher- 
nigov, Tambov, Saratov, Astrakhan, and Orel, and of those 
of which the governor of Nijni-Novgorod, General Bara- 
nov, had boasted. But I had never before happened to 
see men in the process of carrying out these punishments. 

And here I saw the spectacle of good Russians full of 
the Christian spirit traveling with guns and rods to torture 
and kill their starving brethreni The reason for their 
expedition was as follows : 

On one of the estates of a rich landowner the peasants 
had common rights on the forest, and having always 
enjoyed these rights, regarded the forest as their own, or 
at least as theirs in common with the owner. The land- 
owner wished to keep the forest entirely to himself and 
began to fell the trees. The peasants lodged a complaint. 
The judges in the first instance gave an unjust decision (I 
say unjust on the authority of the lawyer and governor, 
who ought to understand the matter), and decided the case 
in favor of the landowner. All the later decisions, even 
that of the senate, though they could see that the matter 
had been unjustly decided, confirmed the judgment and 
adjudged the forest to the landowner. He began to cut 
down the trees, but the peasants, unable to believe that 
such obvious injustice could be done them by the higher 
authorities, did not submit to the decision and drove away 
the men sent to cut down the trees, declaring that the 
forest belonged to them and they would go to the Tzar 
before they would let them cut it down. 

The matter was referred to Petersburg, and the order 
was transmitted to the governor to carry the decision of 



IS WITHIN your 283 

the court into effect. The governor asked for a troop of 
soldiers. And here were the soldiers with bayonets and 
cartridges, and moreover, a supply of rods, expressly pre- 
pared for the purpose and heaped up in one of the trucks, 
going to carry the decision of the higher authorities into 
effect. 

The decisions of the higher authorities are carried into 
effect by means of murder or torture, or threats of one or 
the other, according to whether they offer resistance or not. 

In the first case if the peasants offer resistance the prac- 
tice is in Russia, and it is the same everywhere where a 
state organization and private property exist, as follows : 

The governor delivers an address in which he demands 
submission;. The excited crowd, generally deluded by 
their leaders, don't understand a word of what the repre- 
sentative of authority is saying in the pompous official 
language, and their excitement continues. Then the 
governor announces that if they do not submit and dis- 
perse, he will be obliged to have recourse to force. If the 
crowd does not disperse even on this, the governor gives the 
order to fire over the heads of the crowd. If the crowd does 
not even then disperse, the governor gives the order to fire 
straight into the crowd ; the soldiers fire and the killed and 
wounded fall about the street. Then the crowd usually runs 
away in all directions, and the troops at the governor's com- 
mand take those who are supposed to be the ringleaders 
and lead them off under escort. Then they pick up the 
dying, the wounded, and the dead, covered with blood, some- 
times women and children among them. The dead they 
bury and the wounded they carry to the hospital. Those 
whom they regard as the ringleaders they take to the town 
hall and have them tried by a special court-martial. And if 
they have had recourse to violence on their side, they are 
condemned to be hanged. And then the gallows is erected. 
And they solemnly strangle a few defenseless creatures/ 



284 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD . 

This is what has often been done in Russia, and is and 
must always be done where the social order is based on 
force. 

But in the second case, when the peasants do submit, 
something quite special, peculiar to Russia, takes place. 
The governor arrives on the scene of action and delivers 
an harangue to the people, reproaching them for their 
insubordination, and either stations troops in the houses of 
the villages, where sometimes for a whole month the sol- 
diers drain the resources of the peasants, or contenting 
him.self with threats, he mercifully takes leave of the peo- 
ple, or what is the most frequent course, he announces 
that the ringleaders must be punished, and quite arbitrarily 
without any trial selects a certain number of men, regarded 
as ringleaders, and commands them to be flogged in his 
presence. 

In order to give an idea of how such things are done T 
will describe a proceeding of the kind which took place in 
Orel, and received the full approval of the highest author- 
ities. 

This is what took place in Orel. Just as here in the 
Toula province, a landlord wanted to appropriate the 
property of the peasants and just in the same way the 
peasants opposed it. The matter in dispute was a fall of 
water, which irrigated the peasants' fields, and which the 
landowner wanted to cut off and divert to turn his mill. 
The peasants rebelled against this being done. The land- 
owner laid a complaint before the district commander, who 
illegally (as was recognized later even by a legal decision) 
decided the matter in favor of the landowner, and allowed 
him to divert the water course. The landowner sent work- 
men to dig the conduit by which the water was to be let off 
to turn the mill. The peasants were indignant at this 
unjust decision, and sent their women to prevent the land- 
owner's men from digging this conduit. The women went 



IS WITHIN Your 285 

to the dykes, overturned the carts, and drove away the men. 
The landowner made a complaint against the women for 
thus taking the law into their own hands. The district 
commander made out an order that from every house 
throughout the vilage one woman was to be taken and put 
in prison. The order was not easily executed. For in 
every household there were several women, and it was 
impossible to know which one was to be arrested. Conse- 
quently the police did not carry out the order. The land- 
owner complained to the governor of the neglect on the 
part of the police, and the latter, without examining into 
the affair, gave the chief official of the police strict orders 
to carry out the instructions of the district commander 
without delay. The police official, in obedience to his 
superior, went to the village and with the insolence peculiar 
to Russian officials ordered his policemen to take one 
woman out of each house. But since there were more 
than one woman in each house, and there was no knowing 
which one was sentenced to imprisonment, disputes and 
opposition arose. In spite of these disputes and opposition, 
however, the officer of police gave orders that some woman, 
whichever came first, should be taken from each household 
and led away to prison. The peasants began to defend 
their wives and mothers, would not let them go, and beat 
the police and their officer. This was a fresh and terrible 
crime : resistance was offered to the authorities. A report 
of this new offense was sent to the town. And so this gov- 
ernor — precisely as the governor of Toula was doing on 
that day — with a battalion of soldiers with guns and rods, 
hastily brought together by means of telegraphs and tele- 
phones and railways, proceeded by a special train to the 
scene of action, with a learned doctor whose duty it was 
to insure the flogging being of an hygienic character. 
Herzen's prophecy of the modern Ghenghis Khan with his 
telegrams is completely realized by this governor. 



286 ^' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

Before the town hall of the district were the soldiery, a 
battalion of police with their revolvers slung round them 
with red cords, the persons of most importance among the 
peasants, and the culprits. A crowd of one thousand or 
more people were standing round. The governor, on arriv- 
ing, stepped out of his carriage, delivered a prepared 
harangue, and asked for the culprits and a bench. The 
latter demand was at first not understood. But a police 
constable whom the governor always took about with him, 
and who undertook to organize such executions — by no 
means exceptional in that province — explained that what 
was meant was a bench for flogging. A bench was brought 
as well as the rods, and then the executioners were sum- 
moned (the latter had been selected beforehand from some 
horsestealers of the same village, as the soldiers refused 
the office). When everything was ready, the governor 
ordered the first of the twelve culprits pointed out by the 
landowner as the most guilty to come forward. The first 
to come forward was the head of a family, a man of forty 
who had always stood up manfully for the rights of his 
class, and therefore was held in the greatest esteem by all 
the villagers. He was led to the bench and stripped, and 
then ordered to lie down. 

The peasant attempted to supplicate for mercy, but 
seeing it was useless, he crossed himself and lay down. 
Two police constables hastened to hold him down. The 
learned doctor stood by, in readiness to give his aid and 
his medical science when they should be needed. The 
convicts spit into their hands, brandished the rods, and 
began to flog. It seemed, however, that the bench was too 
narrow, and it was diflicult to keep the victim writhing in 
torture upon it. Then the governor ordered them to bring 
another bench and to put a plank across them. Soldiers, 
with their hands raised to their caps, and respectful mur- 
murs of *' Yes, your Excellency," hasten obediently to carry 



IS wiTHm you:' 287 

out this order. Meanwhile the tortured man, half naked, 
pale and scowling, stood waiting, his eyes fixed on the 
ground and his teeth chattering. When another bench had 
been brought they again made him lie down, and the con- 
victed thieves again began to flog him. 

The victim's back and thighs and legs, and even his 
sides, became more and more covered with scars and wheals, 
and at every blow there came the sound of the deep groans 
which he could no longer restrain. In the crowd standing 
round were heard the sobs of wives, mothers, children, the 
families of the tortured man and of all the others picked 
out for punishment. 

The miserable governor, intoxicated with power, was 
counting the strokes on his fingers, and never left off 
smoking cigarettes, while several officious persons hastened 
on every opportunity to offer him a burning match to light 
them. When more than fifty strokes had been given, the 
peasant ceased to shriek and writhe, and the doctor, who 
had been educated in a government institution to serve 
his sovereign and his country wnth his scientific attainments, 
went up to the victim, felt his pulse, listened to his heart, 
and announced to the representative of authority that the 
man undergoing punishment had lost consciousness, and 
that, in accordance with the conclusions of science, to con- 
tinue the punishment would endanger the victim's life. But 
the miserable governor, now completely intoxicated by the 
sight of blood, gave orders that the punishment should go 
on, and the flogging was continued up to seventy strokes, 
the number which the governor had for some reason fixed 
upon as necessary. When the seventieth stroke had been 
reached, the governor said '' Enough ! Next one ! " And 
the mutilated victim, his back covered with blood, was 
lifted up and carried away unconscious, and another was 
led up. The sobs and groans of the crowd grew louder. 
But the representative of the state continued the torture. 



288 *' THE KINGDOM GF GOD 

Thus they flogged each of them up to the twelfth, and 
each of them received seventy strokes. They all implored 
mercy, shrieked and groaned. The sobs and cries of the 
crowd of women grew louder and more heart-rending, and 
the men's faces grew darker and darker. But they were 
surrounded by troops, and the torture did not cease till it 
had reached the limit which had been fixed by the caprice 
of the miserable half-drunken and insane creature they 
called the governor. 

The officials, and officers, and soldiers not only assisted 
in it, but were even partly responsible for the affair, since 
by their presence they prevented any interference on the 
part of the crowd. 

When I inquired of one of the governors why they made 
use of this kind of torture when people had already sub- 
mitted and soldiers were stationed in the village, he replied 
with the important air of a man who thoroughly under- 
stands all the subtleties of statecraft, that if the peasants 
were not thoroughly subdued by flogging, they would begin 
offering opposition to the decisions of authorities again. 
When some of them had been thoroughly tortured, the 
authority of the state would be secured forever among 
them. 

And so that was why the Governor of Toula was going 
in his turn with his subordinate officials, officers, and 
soldiers to carry out a similar measure. By precisely the 
same means, i. e.^ by murder and torture, obedience to the 
decision of the higher authorities was to be secured. And 
this decision was to enable a young landowner, who had an 
income of one hundred thousand, to gain three thousand 
rubles more by stealing a forest from a whole community 
of cold and famished peasants, to spend it, in two or three 
weeks in the saloons of Moscow, Petersburg, or Paris. 
That was what those people whom I met were going to do. 

After my thoughts had for two years been turned in the 



/S WITHIN- Your 289 

same direction, fate seemed expressly to have brought me 
face to face for the first time in my life with a fact which 
showed me absolutely unmistakably in practice what had 
long been clear to me in theory, that the organization of 
our society rests, not as people interested in maintaining 
the present order of things like to imagine, on certain 
principles of jurisprudence, but on simple brute force, on 
the murder and torture of men. 

People who own great estates or fortunes, or who receive 
great revenues drawn from the class who are in want even 
of necessities, the working class, as well as all those who 
like merchants, doctors, artists, clerks, learned professors, 
coachmen, cooks, writers, valets, and barristers, make their 
living about these rich people, like to believe that the 
privileges they enjoy are not the result of force, but of 
absolutely free and just interchange of services, and that 
their advantages, far from being gained by such punish- 
ments and murders as took place in Orel and several parts 
of Russia this year, and are always taking place all over 
Europe and America, have no kind of connection with 
these acts of violence. They like to believe that their 
privileges exist apart and are the result of free contract 
among people ; and that the violent cruelties perpetrated 
on the people also exist apart and are the result of some 
general judicial, political, or economical laws. They try 
not to see that they all enjoy their privileges as a result of 
the same fact which forces the peasants who have tended 
the forest, and who are in the direct need of it for fuel, to 
give it up to a rich landowner who has taken no part in 
caring for its growth and has no need of it whatever — the 
fact, that is, that if they don't give it up they will be flogged 
or killed. 

And yet if it is clear that it was only by means of menaces, 
blows, or murder, that the mill in Orel was enabled to yield 
a larger income, or that the forest which the peasants had 



290 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

planted became the property of a landowner, it should be 
equally clear that all the other exclusive rights enjoyed by 
the rich, by robbing the poor of their necessities, rest on 
the same basis of violence. If the peasants, who need 
land to maintain their families, may not cultivate the land 
about their houses, but one man, a Russian, English, Aus- 
trian, or any other great landowner, possesses land enough 
to maintain a thousand families, though he does not culti- 
vate it himself, and if a merchant profiting by the misery 
of the cultivators, taking corn from them at a third of its 
value, can keep this corn in his granaries with perfect 
security while men are starving all around him, and sell it 
again for three times its value to the very cultivators he 
bought it from, it is evident that all this too comes from 
the same cause. And if one man may not buy of another 
a commodity from the other side of a certain fixed line, 
called the frontier, without paying certain duties on it to 
men who have taken no part whatever in its production — 
and if men are driven to sell their last cow to pay taxes 
which the government distributes among its functionaries, 
and spends on maintaining soldiers to murder these very 
taxpayers — it would appear self-evident that all this does 
not come about as the result of any abstract laws, but is 
based on just what was done in Orel, and which may be 
done in Toula, and is done periodically in one form or 
another throughout the whole world wherever there is a 
government, and where there are rich and poor. 

Simply because torture and murder are not employed in 
every instance of oppression by force, those who enjoy the 
exclusive privileges of the ruling classes persuade themselves 
and others that their privileges are not based on torture 
and murder, but on some mysterious general causes, abstract 
laws, and so on. Yet one would think it was perfectly clear 
that if men, who consider it unjust (and all the working 
classes do consider it so nowadays), still pay the principal 



IS WITHIN Your 291 

part of the produce of their labor away to the capitalist 
and the landowner, and pay taxes, though they know to 
what a bad use these taxes are put, they do so not from 
recognition of abstract laws of which they have never heard, 
but only because they know they will be beaten and killed 
if they don't do so. 

And if there is no need to imprison, beat, and kill men 
every time the landlord collects his rents, every time those 
who are in want of bread have to pay a swindling merchant 
three times its value, every time the factory hand has to be 
content with a wage less than half of the profit made by 
the employer, and every time a poor man pays his last 
ruble in taxes, it is because so many men have been beaten 
and killed for trying to resist these demands, that the les- 
son has now been learnt very thoroughly. 

Just as a trained tiger, who does not eat meat put under 
his nose, and jumps over a stick at the word of command, 
does not act thus because he likes it, but because he re- 
members the red-hot irons or the fast with which he was 
punished every time he did not obey ; so men submitting 
to what is disadvantageous or even ruinous to them, and 
considered by them as unjust, act thus because they remem- 
ber what they suffered for resisting it. 

As for those who profit by the privileges gained by 
previous acts of violence, they often forget and like to for- 
get how these privileges were obtained. But one need 
only recall the facts of history, not the history of the ex- 
ploits of different dynasties of rulers, but real history, the 
history of the oppression of the majority by a small number 
of men, to see that all the advantages the rich have over 
the poor are based on nothing but flogging, imprisonment, 
and murder. 

One need but reflect on the unceasing, persistent strug- 
gle of all to better their material position, which is the 
guiding motive of men of the present day, to be convinced 



292 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

that the advantages of the rich over the poor could never 
and can never be maintained by anything but force. 

There may be cases of oppression, of violence, and of 
punishments, though they are rare, the aim of which is not 
to secure the privileges of the propertied classes. But one 
may confidently assert that in any society where, for every 
man living in ease, there are ten exhausted oy labor, 
envious, covetous, and often suffering with their families 
from direct privation, all the privileges of the rich, all their 
luxuries and superfluities, are obtained and maintained 
only by tortures, imprisonment, and murder. 

The train I met on the 9th of September going with 
soldiers, guns, cartridges, and rods, to confirm the rich 
landowner in the possession of a small forest which he 
had taken from the starving peasants, which they were in 
the direst need of, and he was in no need of at all, was a 
striking proof of how men are capable of doing deeds 
directly opposed to their principles and their conscience 
without perceiving it. 

The special train consisted of one first-class carriage for 
the governor, the officials, and officers, and several luggage 
vans crammed full of soldiers. The latter, smart young 
fellows in their clean new uniforms, w^ere standing about 
in groups or sitting swinging their legs in the wide open 
doorways of the luggage vans. Some were smoking, 
nudging each other, joking, grinning, and laughing, others 
were munching sunflower seeds and spitting out the husks 
with an air of dignity. Some of them ran along the plat- 
form to drink some water from a tub there, and when they 
met the officers they slackened their pace, made their stupid 
gesture of salutation, raising their hands to their heads with 
serious faces as though they were doing something of the 
greatest importance. They kept their eyes on them till 
they had passed by them, and then set off running still 
more merrily, stamping their heels on the platform, laugh- 



IS WITHIN your 293 

ing and chattering after the manner of healthy, good-natured 
young fellows, traveling in lively company. 

They were going to assist at the murder of their fathers 
or grandfathers just as if they were going on a party of 
pleasure, or at any rate on some quite ordinary busi- 
ness. 

The same impression was produced by the well-dressed 
functionaries and officers who were scattered about the 
platform and in the first-class carriage. At a table covered 
with bottles was sitting the governor, who was responsible 
for the whole expedition, dressed in his half-military uni- 
form and eating something while he chatted tranquilly 
about the weather with some acquaintances he had met, as 
though the business he was upon was of so simple and ordi- 
nary a character that it could not disturb his serenity and 
his interest in the change of weather. 

At a little distance from the table sat the general of the 
police. He was not taking any refreshment, and had an 
impenetrable bored expression, as though he were weary of 
the formaUties to be gone through. On all sides officers 
were bustling noisily about in their red uniforms trimm.ed 
with gold ; one sat at a table finishing his bottle of beer, 
another stood at the buffet eating a cake, and brushing the 
crumbs off his uniform, threw down his money with a self- 
confident air ; another was sauntering before the carriages 
of our train, staring at the faces of the women. 

All these men who were going to murder or to torture 
the famishing and defenseless creatures who provide them 
their sustenance had the air of men who knew very well 
that they were doing their duty, and some were even proud, 
were " glorying '* in what they were doing. 

What is the meaning of it ? 

All these people are within half an hour of reaching the 
place where, in order to provide a wealthy young man with 
three thousand rubles stolen from a whole community of 



294 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

famishing peasants, they may be forced to commit the most 
horrible acts one can conceive, to murder or torture, as was 
done in Orel, innocent beings, their brothers. And they 
see the place and time approaching with untroubled 
serenity. 

To say that all these government officials, officers, and 
soldiers do not know what is before them is impossible, for 
they are prepared for it. The governor must have given 
directions about the rods, the officials must have sent an 
order for them, purchased them, and entered the item in 
their accounts. The military officers have given and re- 
ceived orders about cartridges. They all know that they 
are going to torture, perhaps to kill, their famishing fellow- 
creatures, and that they must set to work within an hour. 

To say, as is usually said, and as they would themselves 
repeat, that they are acting from conviction of the necessity 
for supporting the state organization, would be a mistake. 
For in the first place, these men have probably never even 
thought about state organization and the necessity of it ; 
in the second place, they cannot possibly be convinced that 
the act in which they are taking part will tend to support 
rather than to ruin the state ; and thirdly, in reality the ma- 
jority, if not all, of these men, far from ever sacrificing 
their own pleasure or tranquillity to support the state, never 
let slip an opportunity of profiting at the expense of the 
state in every way they can increase their own pleasure 
and ease. So that they are not acting thus for the sake of 
the abstract principle of the state. 

What is the meaning of it ? 

Yet I know all these men. If I don't know all of them 
personally, I know their characters pretty nearly, their past, 
and their way of thinking. They certainly all have mothers, 
some of them wives and children. They are certainly for 
the most part good, kind, even tender-hearted fellows, who 
hate every sort of cruelty, not to speak of murder ; many 



IS WITHIN Your 295 

of them would not kill or hurt an animal. Moreover, they 
are all professed Christians and regard all violence di- 
rected against the defenseless as base and disgraceful. 

Certainly not one of them would be capable in everyday 
life, for his own personal profit, of doing a hundredth part 
of what the Governor of Orel did. Every one of them 
would be insulted at the supposition that he was capable 
of doing anything of the kind in private life. 

And yet they are within half an hour of reaching the 
place where they may be reduced to the inevitable neces- 
sity of committing this crime. 

What is the meaning of it ? 

But it is not only these men who are going by train pre- 
pared for murder and torture. How could the men who 
began the whole business, the landowner, the commis- 
sioner, the judges, and those who gave the order and are 
responsible for it, the ministers, the Tzar, who are also 
good men, professed Christians, how could they elaborate 
such a plan and assent to it, knowing its consequences ? 
The spectators even, who took no part in the affair, how 
could they, who are indignant at the sight of any cruelty 
in private life, even the overtaxing of a horse, allow such 
a horrible deed to be perpetrated ? How was it they did 
not rise in indignation and bar the roads, shouting, " No ; 
flog and kill starving men because they won't let their last 
possession be stolen from them without resistance, that we 
won't allow ! " But far from anyone doing this, the 
majority, even of those who were the cause of the affair, 
such as the commissioner, the landowner, the judge, and 
those who took part in it and arranged it, as the governor, 
the ministers, and the Tzar, are perfectly tranquil and do 
not even feel a prick of conscience. And apparently all 
the men who are going to carry out this crime are equally 
undisturbed. 

The spectators, who one would suppose could have no 



296 ^' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

personal interest in the affair, looked rather with s)'mpathy 
than with disapproval at all these people preparing to 
carry out this infamous action. In the same compartment 
with me was a wood merchant, who had risen from a 
peasant. He openly expressed aloud his sympathy with 
such punishments. ** They can't disobey the authorities," 
he said ; *' that's what the authorities are for. Let them 
have a lesson ; send their fleas flying ! They'll give over 
making commotions, I warrant you. That's what they 
want." 

What is the meaning of it ? 

It is not possible to say that all these people who have 
provoked or aided or allowed this deed are such worthless 
creatures that, knowing all the infamy of what they are 
doing, they do it against their principles, some for pay and 
for profit, others through fear of punishment. All of them 
in certain circumstances know how to stand up for their 
principles. Not one of these officials would steal a purse, 
read another man's letter, or put up with an affront without 
demanding satisfaction. Not one of these officers would 
consent to cheat at cards, would refuse to pay a debt of 
honor, would betray a comrade, run away on the field 
of battle, or desert the flag. Not one of these soldiers 
would spit out the holy sacrament or eat meat on Good 
Friday. All these men are ready to face any kind of 
privation, suffering, or danger rather than consent to do 
what they regard as wrong. They have therefore the 
strength to resist doing what is against their principles. 

It is even less possible to assert that all these men are 
such brutes that it is natural and not distasteful to them to 
do such deeds. One need only talk to these people a little 
to see that all of them, the landowner even, and the judge, 
and the minister and the Tzar and the government, the 
officers and the soldiers, not only disapprove of such things 
in the depth of their soul, but suffer from the consciousness 



IS WITHIN Your 297 

of their participation in them when they recollect what they 
imply. But they try not to think about it. 

One need only talk to any of these who are taking part 
in the affair from the landowner to the lowest policeman or 
soldier to see that in the depth of their soul they all know 
it is a wicked thing, that it would be better to have nothing 
to do with it, and are suffering from the knowledge. 

A lady of liberal views, who was traveling in the same 
train with us, seeing the governor and the officers in the 
first-class saloon and learning the object of the expedition, 
began, intentionally raising her voice so that they should 
hear, to abuse the existing order of things and to cry shame 
on men who would take part in such proceedings. Every- 
one felt awkward, none knew where to look, but no one 
contradicted her. They tried to look as though such 
remarks were not worth answering. But one could see by 
their faces and their averted eyes that they were ashamed. 
I noticed the same thing in the soldiers. They too knew 
that what they were sent to do was a shameful thing, but 
they did not want to think about what was before them. 

When the wood merchant, as I suspect insincerely only 
to show that he was a man of education, began to speak of 
the necessity of such measures, the soldiers who heard him 
all turned away from him, scowling and pretending not to 
hear. 

All the men who, like the landowner, the commissioner, 
the minister, and the Tzar, were responsible for the per- 
petration of this act, as well as those who were now going 
to execute it, and even those who were mere spectators of 
it, knew that it was a wickedness, and were ashamed of tak- 
ing any share in it, and even of being present at it. 

Then why did they do it, or allow it to be done? 

Ask them the question. And the landowner who started 
the affair, and the judge who pronounced a clearly unjust 
even though formally legal decision, and those who cool. 



298 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

manded the execution of the decision, and those who, like 
the policemen, soldiers, and peasants, will execute the deed 
with their own hands, flogging and killing their brothers, all 
who have devised, abetted, decreed, executed, or allowed 
such crimes, will make substantially the same reply. 

The authorities, those who have started, devised, and 
decreed the matter, will say that such acts are necessary for 
the maintenance of the existing order ; the maintenance 
of the existing order is necessary for the welfare of the 
country and of humanity, for the possibility of social 
existence and human progress. 

Men of the poorer class, peasants and soldiers, who will 
have to execute the deed of violence with their own hands, 
say that they do so because it is the command of their 
superior authority, and the superior authority knows what 
he is about. That those are in authority who ought to be 
in authority, and that they know what they are doing ap- 
pears to them a truth of which there can be no doubt. If 
they could admit the possibility of mistake or error, it 
would only be in functionaries of a lower grade ; the 
highest authority on which all the rest depends seems to 
them immaculate beyond suspicion. 

Though expressing the motives of their conduct differ- 
ently, both those in command and their subordinates are 
agreed in saying that they act thus because the existing 
order is the order which must and ought to exist at the 
present time, and that therefore to support it is the sacred 
duty of every man. 

On this acceptance of the necessity and therefore immu- 
tability of the existing order, all who take part in acts of 
violence on the part of government base the argument 
always advanced in their justification. *^ Since the existing 
order is immutable," they say, ^'the refusal of a single 
individual to perform the duties laid upon him will effect 
no change in things, and will only mean that some other 



IS WITHIN you:' ^99 

man will be put in his place who may do the work worse, 
that is to say, more cruelly, to the still greater injury of the 
victims of the act of violence." 

This conviction that the existing order is the necessary 
and therefore immutable order, which it is a sacred duty 
for every man to support, enables good men, of high prin- 
ciples in private life, to take part with conscience more or 
less untroubled in crimes such as that perpetrated in Orel, 
and that which the men in the Toula train were going to 
perpetrate. 

But what is this conviction based on ? It is easy to un- 
derstand that the landowner prefers to believe that the 
existing order is inevitable and immutable, because this ex- 
isting order secures him an income from his hundreds and 
thousands of acres, by means of which he can lead his 
habitual indolent and luxurious life. 

It is easy to understand that the judge readily believes 
in the necessity of an order of things through which he 
receives a wage fifty times as great as the most industrious 
laborer can earn, and the same applies to all the higher 
officials. It is only under the existing regime that as gov- 
ernor, prosecutor, senator, members of the various councils, 
they can receive their several thousands of rubles a year, 
without which they and their families would at once sink 
into ruin, since if it were not for the position they occupy 
they would never by their own abilities, industry, or acquire- 
ments get a thousandth part of their salaries. The minister, 
the Tzar, and all the higher authorities are in the same posi- 
tion. The only distinction is that the higher and the more 
exceptional their position, the more necessary it is for them 
to believe that the existing order is the only possible order 
of things. For without it they would not only be unable to 
gain an equal position, but would be found to fall Lower 
than all other people. A man who has of his own free will 
entered the police force at a wage of ten rubles, which he 



30O " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

could easily earn in any other position, is hardly dependent 
on the preservation of the existing regime^ and so he may 
not believe in its immutability. But a king or an emperor, 
who receives millions for his post, and knows that there are 
thousands of people round him who would like to dethrone 
him and take his place, who knows that he will never 
receive such a revenue or so much honor in any other posi- 
tion, who knows, in most cases through his more or less 
despotic rule, that if he were dethroned he would have to 
answer for all his abuse of power — he cannot but believe 
in the necessity and even sacredness of the existing order. 
The higher and the more profitable a man's position, the 
more unstable it becomes, and the more terrible and dan- 
gerous a fall from it for him, the more firmly the man 
believes in the existing order, and therefore with the more 
ease of conscience can such a man perpetrate cruel and 
wicked acts, as though they were not in his own interest, 
but for the maintenance of that order. 

This is the case with all men in authority, who occupy 
positions more profitable than they could occupy except 
for the present regime^ from the lowest police officer to the 
Tzar. All of them are more or less convinced that the 
existing order is immutable, because — the chief considera- 
tion^ — it is to their advantage. But the peasants, the sol- 
diers, who are at the bottom of the social scale, who have no 
kind of advantage from the existing order, who are in the 
very lowest position of subjection and humiliation, what 
forces them to believe that the existing order in which they 
are in their humble and disadvantageous position is the 
order which ought to exist, and which they ought to sup- 
port even at the cost of evil actions contrary to their con- 
science ? 

What forces these men to the false reasoning that the 
existing order is unchanging, and that therefore they 
ought to support it, when it is so obvious, on the contrary, 



IS WITHIN Your 301 

that it is only unchanging because they themselves sup- 
port it ? 

What forces these peasants, taken only yesterday from 
the plow and dressed in ugly and unseemly costumes with 
blue collars and gilt buttons, to go with guns and sabers 
and murder their famishing fathers and brothers ? They 
gain no kind of advantage and can be in no fear of losing 
the position they occupy, because it is worse than that 
from which they have been taken. 

The persons in authority of the higher orders — land- 
owners, merchants, judges, senators, governors, ministers, 
tzars, and officers — take part in such doings because the 
existing order is to their advantage. In other respects they 
are often good and kind-hearted men, and they are more 
able to take part in such doings because their share in them 
is limited to suggestions, decisions, and orders. These per- 
sons in authority never do themselves what they suggest, 
decide, or command to be done. For the most part they 
do not even see how all the atrocious deeds they have 
suggested and authorized are carried out. But the unfor- 
tunate men of the lower orders, who gain no kind of advan- 
tage from the existing regime^ but, on the contrary, are 
treated with the utmost contempt, support it even by 
dragging people with their own hands from their families, 
handcuffing them, throwing them in prison, guarding them, 
shooting them. 

Why do they do it ? What forces them to believe that 
the existing order is unchanging and they must support it ? 

All violence rests, we know, on those who do the beat- 
ing, the handcuffing, the imprisoning, and the killing with 
their own hands. If there were no soldiers or armed 
policemen, ready to kill or outrage anyone as they are 
ordered, not one of those people who sign sentences of 
death, imprisonment, or galley- slavery for life would make 
up his mind to hang, imprison, or torture a thousandth 



302 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

part of those whom, quietly sitting in his study, he now 
orders to be tortured in all kinds of ways, simply because 
he does not see it nor do it himself, but only gets it done 
at a distance by these servile tools. 

All the acts of injustice and cruelty which are committed 
in the ordinary course of daily life have only become 
habitual because there are these men always ready to 
carry out such acts of injustice and cruelty. If it were 
not for them, far from anyone using violence against the 
immense masses who are now ill-treated, those who now 
command their punishment would not venture to sentence 
them, would not even dare to dream of the sentences they 
decree with such easy confidence at present. And if it 
were not for these men, ready to kill or torture anyone at 
their commander's will, no one would dare to claim, as all 
the idle landowners claim with such assurance, that a piece 
of land, surrounded by peasants, who are in wretchedness 
from want of land, is the property of a man who does not 
cultivate it, or that stores of corn taken by swindling from 
the peasants ought to remain untouched in the midst of a 
population dying of hunger because the merchants must 
make their profit. If it were not for these servile instru- 
ments at the disposal of the authorities, it could never have 
entered the head of the landowner to rob the peasants of 
the forest they had tended, nor of the officials to think they 
are entitled to their salaries, taken from the famishing peo- 
ple, the price of their oppression ; least of all could anyone 
dream of killing or exiling men for exposing falsehood and 
telling the truth. All this can only be done because the 
authorities are confidently assured that they have always 
these servile tools at hand, ready to carry all their demands 
into effect by means of torture and murder. 

All the deeds of violence of tyrants from Napoleon to 
the lowest commander of a company who fires upon a 
crowd, can only be explained by the intoxicating effect of 



IS WITHIN Your ZO^ 

their absolute power over these slaves. All force, there- 
fore, rests on these men, who carry out the deeds of violence 
with their own hands, the men who serve in the police or 
the army, especially the army, for the police only venture 
to do their work because the army is at their back. 

What, then, has brought these masses of honest men, on 
whom the whole thing depends, who gain nothing by it, 
and who have to do these atrocious deeds with their own 
hands, what has brought them to accept the amazing delu- 
sion that the existing order, unprofitable, ruinous, and fatal 
as it is for them, is the order which ought to exist? 

Who has led them into this amazing delusion ? 

They can never have persuaded themselves that they 
ought to do what is against their conscience, and also the 
source of misery and ruin for themselves, and all their 
class, who make up nine-tenths of the population. 

" How can you kill people, when it is written in God's 
commandment: ^ Thou shalt not kill*?'' I have often 
inquired of different soldiers. And I always drove them 
to embarrassment and confusion by reminding them of 
what they did not want to think about. They knew they 
were bound by the law of God, *' Thou shalt not kill," and 
knew too that they were bound by their duty as soldiers, 
but had never reflected on the contradiction between these 
duties. The drift of the timid answers I received to this 
question was always approximately this : that killing in 
war and executing criminals by command of the govern- 
ment are not included in the general prohibition of murder. 
But when I said this distinction was not made in the law 
of God, and reminded them of the Christian duty of frater- 
nity, forgiveness of injuries, and love, which could not be 
reconciled with murder, the peasants usually agreed, but in 
their turn began to ask me questions. ** How does it hap- 
pen," they inquired, *' that the government [which accord- 
ing to their ideas cannot do wrong] sends the army to war 



304 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

and orders criminals to be executed." When I answered 
that the government does wrong in giving such orders, the 
peasants fell into still greater confusion, and either broke 
off the conversation or else got angry with me. 

'* They must have found a law for it. The archbishops 
know as much about it as we do, I should hope," a Russian 
soldier once observed to me. And in saying this the soldier 
obviously set his mind at rest, in the full conviction that 
his spiritual guides had found a law which authorized his 
ancestors, and the tzars and their descendants, and millions 
of men, to serve as he was doing himself, and that the 
question I had put him was a kind of hoax or conundrum 
on my part. 

Everyone in our Christian society knows, either by tradi- 
tion or by revelation or by the voice of conscience, that 
murder is one of the most fearful crimes a man can commit, 
as the Gospel tells us, and that the sin of murder cannot 
be limited to certain persons, that is, murder cannot be a 
sin for some and not a sin for others. Everyone knows 
that if murder is a sin, it is always a sin, whoever are the 
victims murdered, just like the sin of adultery, theft, or any 
other. At the same time from their childhood up men see 
that murder is not only permitted, but even sanctioned by 
the blessing of those whom they are accustomed to regard 
as their divinely appointed spiritual guides, and see their 
secular leaders with calm assurance organizing murder, 
proud to wear murderous arms, and demanding of others 
in the name of the laws of the country, and even of God, 
that they should take part in murder. Men see that there 
is some inconsistency here, but not being able to analyze it, 
involuntarily assume that this apparent inconsistency is 
only the result of their ignorance. The very grossness 
and obviousness of the inconsistency confirms them in this 
conviction. 

They cannot imagine that the leaders of civilization, the 



IS WITHIN you:' 305 

educated classes, could so confidently preach two such 
opposed principles as the law of Christ and murder. A 
simple uncorrupted youth cannot imagine that those who 
stand so high in his opinion, whom he regards as holy or 
learned men, could for any object whatever mislead him so 
shamefully. But this is just what has always been and 
always is done to him. It is done (i) by instilling, by 
example and direct instruction, from childhood up, into 
the working people, who have not time to study moral and 
religious questions for themselves, the idea that torture and 
murder are compatible with Christianity, and that for cer- 
tain objects of state, torture and murder are not only 
admissible, but ought to be employed ; and (2) by instilling 
into certain of the people, who have either voluntarily 
enlisted or been taken by compulsion into the army, the 
idea that the perpetration of murder and torture with their 
own hands is a sacred duty, and even a glorious exploit, 
worthy of praise and reward. 

The general delusion is diffused among all people by 
means of the catechisms or books, which nowadays replace 
them, in use for the compulsory education of children. In 
them it is stated that violence, that is, imprisonment and 
execution, as well as murder in civil or foreign war in the 
defense and maintenance of the existing state organization 
(whatever that may be, absolute or limJted monarchy, con- 
vention, consulate, empire of this or that Napoleon or 
Boulanger, constitutional monarchy, commune or republic) 
is absolutely lawful and not opposed to morality and 
Christianity. 

This is stated in all catechisms or books used in schools. 
And men are so thoroughly persuaded of it that they grow 
up, live and die in that conviction without once entertaining 
a doubt about it. 

This is one form of deception, the general deception 
instilled into everyone, but there is another special decep- 



3o6 *' THE KINGDOM OP GOD 

tion practiced upon the soldiers or police who are picked 
out by one means or another to do the torturing and 
murdering necessary to defend and maintain the existing 
regmie. 

In all military instructions there appears in one form or 
another what is expressed in the Russian military code in 
the following words : 

Article 87. To carry out exactly and without comment 
the orders of a superior officer means : to carry out an 
order received from a superior officer exactly without con- 
sidering whether it is good or not, and whether it is pos- 
sible to carry it out. The superior officer is responsible 
for the consequences of the order he gives. 

Article Z'^. The subordinate ought never to refuse to 
carry out the orders of a superior officer except when he 
sees clearly that in carrying out his superior officer's com- 
mand, he breaks [the law of God, one involuntarily expects ; 
not at all] his oath of fidelity and allegiance to the Tzar, 

It is here said that the man who is a soldier can and 
ought to carry out all the orders of his superior without 
exception. And as these orders for the most part involve 
murder, it follows that he ought to break all the laws of 
God and man. The one law he may not break is that of 
fidelity and allegiance to the man who happens at a given 
moment to be in power. 

Precisely the same thing is said in other words in all 
codes of military instruction. And it could not be other- 
wise, since the whole power of the army and the state is 
based in reality on this delusive emancipation of men from 
their duty to God and their conscience, and the substitu- 
tion of duty to their superior officer for all other duties. 

This, then, is the foundation of the belief of the lower 
classes that the existing regime so fatal for them is the 
regime which ought to exist, and which they ought there- 
fore to support even by torture and murder. 



IS WITHIN Your 307 

This belief is founded on a conscious deception practiced 
on them by the higher classes. 

And it cannot be otherwise. To compel the lower classes, 
which are more numerous, to oppress and ill treat them- 
selves, even at the cost of actions opposed to their con- 
science, it was necessary to deceive them. And it has 
been done accordingly. 

Not many days ago I saw once more this shameless 
deception being openly practiced, and once more I mar- 
veled that it could be practiced so easily and impudently. 

At the beginning of November, as I was passing through 
Toula, I saw once again at the gates of the Zemsky Court- 
house the crowd of peasants I had so often seen before, 
and heard the drunken shouts of the men mingled with the 
pitiful lamentations of their wives and mothers. It was the 
recruiting session. 

I can never pass by the spectacle. It attracts me by a 
kind of fascination of repulsion. I again went into the 
crowd, took my stand among the peasants, looked about 
and asked questions. And once again I was amazed that 
this hideous crime can be perpetrated so easily in broad 
daylight and in the midst of a large town. 

As the custom is every year, in all the villages and ham- 
lets of the one hundred millions of Russians, on the ist of 
November, the village elders had assembled the young men 
inscribed on the lists, often their own sons among them, 
and had brought them to the town. 

On the road the recruits have been drinking without 
intermission, unchecked by the elders, who feel that going 
on such an insane errand, abandoning their wives and 
mothers and renouncing all they hold sacred in order to 
become a senseless instrument of destruction, would be too 
agonizing if they were not stupefied with spirits. 

And so they have come, drinking, swearing, singing, 
fighting and scuffling with one another. They have spent 



3o8 '< THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

the night in taverns. In the morning they have slept off 
their drunkenness and have gathered together at the 
Zemsky Court-house. 

Some of them, in new sheepskin pelisses, with knitted 
scarves round their necks, their eyes swollen from drink- 
ing, are shouting wildly to one another to show their cour- 
age ; others, crowded near the door, are quietly and mourn- 
fully waiting their turn, between their weeping wives and 
mothers (I had chanced upon the day of the actual enroll- 
ing, that is, the examination of those whose names are on 
the list) ; others meantime were crowding into the hall of 
the recruiting office. 

Inside the office the work was going on rapidly. The 
door is opened and the guard calls Piotr Sidorov. Piotr 
Sidorov starts, crosses himself, and goes into a little- room 
with a glass door, where the conscripts undress. A com- 
rade of Piotr Sidorov's, who has just been passed for 
service, and come naked out of the revision office, is dress- 
ing hurriedly, his teeth chattering. Sidorov has already 
heard the news, and can see from his face too that he has 
been taken. He wants to ask him questions, but they 
hurry him and tell him to make haste and undress. He 
throws off his pelisse, slips his boots off his feet, takes off 
his waistcoat and draws his shirt over his head, and naked, 
trembling all over, and exhaling an odor of tobacco, spirits, 
and sweat, goes into the revision office, not knowing what 
to do with his brawny bare arms. 

Directly facing him in the revision office hangs in a great 
gold frame a portrait of the Tzar in full uniform with decora- 
tions, and in the corner a little portrait of Christ in a shirt 
and a crown of thorns. In the middle of the room is a 
table covered with green cloth, on which there are papers 
lying and a three-cornered ornament surmounted by an 
eagle — the zertzal. Round the table are sitting the revising 
officers, looking collected and indifferent. One is smoking 



IS WITHIN Your 309 

a cigarette ; another is looking through some papers. 
Directly Sidorov comes in, a guard goes up to him, places 
him under the measuring frame, raising him under his 
chin, and straightening his legs. 

The man with the cigarette — he is the doctor — comes up, 
and without looking at the recruit's face, but somewhere 
beyond it, feels his body over with an air of disgust, 
measures him, tests him, tells the guard to open his mouth, 
tells him to breathe, to speak. Someone notes something 
down. At last without having once looked him in the face 
the doctor says, '^ Right. Next one ! " and with a weary 
air sits down again at the table. The soldiers again hustle 
and hurry the lad. He somehow gets into his trousers, 
wraps his feet in rags, puts on his boots, looks for his scarf 
and cap, and bundles his pelisse under his arm. Then they 
lead him into the main hall, shutting him off apart from 
the rest by a bench, behind which all the conscripts who 
have been passed for service are waiting. Another village 
lad like himself, but from a distant province, now a soldier 
armed with a gun with a sharp-pointed bayonet at the end, 
keeps watch over him, ready to run him through the body 
if he should think of trying to escape. 

Meantime the crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives, 
hustled by the police, are pressing round the doors to hear 
whose lad has been taken, whose is let off. One of the 
rejected comes out and announces that Piotr is taken, and 
at once a shrill cry is heard from Piotr's young wife, for 
whom this word ^* taken " means separation for four or five 
years, the life of a soldier's wife as a servant, often a pros- 
titute. 

But here comes a man along the street with flowing hair 
and in a peculiar dress, who gets out of his droskhy and 
goes into the Zemsky Court-house. The police clear a way 
for him through the crowd. It is the ^' reverend father " 
come to administer the oath, And this '' father," who has 



3IO *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

been persuaded that he is specially and exclusively devoted 
to the service of Christ, and who, for the most part, does 
not himself see the deception in which he lives, goes into 
the hall where the conscripts are waiting. He throws 
round him a kind of curtain of brocade, pulls his long hair 
out over it, opens the very Gospel in which swearing is 
forbidden, takes the cross, the very cross on which Christ 
was crucified because he would not do what this false servant 
of his is telling men to do, and puts them on the lectern. 
And all these unhappy, defenseless, and deluded lads 
repeat after him the lie, which he utters with the assurance 
of familiarity. 

He reads and they repeat after him : 

" I promise and swear by Almighty God upon his holy 
Gospel,*' etc., '' to defend," etc., and that is, to murder any- 
one I am told to, and to do everything I am told by men I 
know nothing of, and who care nothing for me except as 
an instrument for perpetrating the crimes by which they 
are kept in their position of power, and my brothers in their 
condition of misery. All the conscripts repeat these fero- 
cious words without thinking. And then the so-called 
" father '* goes away with a sense of having correctly and 
conscientiously done his duty. And all these poor deluded 
lads believe that these nonsensical and incomprehensible 
words which they have just uttered set them free for the 
whole time of their service from their duties as men, and 
lay upon them fresh and more binding duties as soldiers. 

And this crime is perpetrated publicly and no one cries 
out to the deceiving and the deceived : *' Think what you 
are doing ; this is the basest, falsest lie, by which not 
bodies only, but souls too, are destroyed.'* 

No one does this. On the contrary, when all have been 
enrolled, and they are to be let out again, the military offi- 
cer goes with a confident and majestic air into the hall 
where the drunken, cheated lads are shut up, and cries in a 



IS WITHIM Your 3H 

bold, military voice : '* Your health, my lads ! I congratu- 
late you on * serving the Tzar ! ' " And they, poor fellows 
(someone has given them a hint beforehand), mutter awk- 
wardly, their voices thick with drink, something to the effect 
that they are glad. 

Meantime the crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives is 
standing at the doors waiting. The women keep their tear- 
ful eyes fixed on the doors. They open at last, and out 
come the conscripts, unsteady, but trying to put a good face 
on it. Here are Piotr and Vania and Makar trying not 
to look their dear ones in the face. Nothing is heard but 
the wailing of the wives and mothers. Some of the lads 
embrace them and weep with them, others make a show of 
courage, and others try to comfort them. 

The wives and mothers, knowing that they will be left for 
three, four, or five years without their breadwinners, weep 
and rehearse their woes aloud. The fathers say little. They 
only utter a clucking sound with their tongues and sigh 
mournfully, knowing that they will see no more of the 
steady lads they have reared and trained to help them, that 
they will come back not the same quiet hard-working labor- 
ers, but for the most part conceited and demoralized, 
unfitted for their simple life. 

And then all the crowd get into their sledges again and 
move away down the street to the taverns and pot-houses, 
and louder than ever sounds the medley of singing and 
sobbing, drunken shouts, and the wailing of the wives and 
mothers, the sounds of the accordeon and oaths. They 
all turn into the taverns, whose revenues go to the govern- 
ment, and the drinking bout begins, which stifles their 
sense of the wrong which is being done them. 

For two or three weeks they go on living at home, and 
most of that time they a^te " jaunting,'* that is, drinking. 

On a fixed day they collect them, drive them together 
like a flock of sheep, and begin to train them in the military 



312 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

exercises and drill. Their teachers are fellows like them- 
selves, only deceived and brutalized two or three years 
sooner. The means of instruction are : deception, stupe- 
faction, blows, and vodka. And before a year has passed 
these good, intelligent, healthy-minded lads will be as bru- 
tal beings as their instructors. 

" Come, now, suppose your father were arrested and 
tried to make his escape?*' I asked a young soldier. 

**I should run him through with my bayonet," he an- 
swered, with the foolish intonation peculiar to soldiers ; 
" and if he made off, I ought to shoot him," he added, ob- 
viously proud of knowing what he must do if his father 
were escaping. 

And when a good-hearted lad has been brought to a 
state lower than that of a brute, he is just what is wanted 
by those who use him as an instrument of violence. He is 
ready; the man has been destroyed and a new instrument 
of violence has been created. And all this is done every 
year, every autumn, everywhere, through all Russia in broad 
daylight in the midst of large towns, where all may see it, 
and the deception is so clever, so skillful, that though all 
men know the infamy of it in their hearts, and see all its 
horrible results, they cannot throw it off and be free. 

When one's eyes are opened to this awful deception 
practiced upon us, one marvels that the teachers of the 
Christian religion and of morals, the instructors of youth, 
or even the good-hearted and intelligent parents who are 
to be found in every society, can teach any kind of moral- 
ity in a society in which it is openly admitted (it is so ad- 
mitted, under all governments and all churches) that mur- 
der and torture form an indispensable element in the life 
of all, and that there must always be special men trained to 
kill their fellows, and that any otie of us may have to be- 
come such a trained assassin. 

How can children, youths, and people generally be 



IS WITHIN Your 313 

taught any kind of morality — not to speak of teaching in 
the spirit of Christianity — side by side with the doctrine 
that murder is necessary for the public weal, and therefore 
legitimate, and that there are men, of whom each of us may 
have to be one, whose duty is to murder and torture and 
commit all sorts of crimes at the will of those who are in 
possession of authority. If this is so, and one can and 
ought to murder and torture, there is not, and cannot be, 
any kind of moral law, but only the law that might is right. 
And this is just how it is. In reality that is the doctrine — 
justified to some by the theory of the struggle for existence 
— which reigns in our society. 

And, indeed, what sort of ethical doctrine could admit 
the legitimacy of murder for any object whatever ? It is 
as impossible as a theory of mathematics admitting that 
two is equal to three. 

There may be a semblance of mathematics admitting 
that two is equal to three, but there can be no real science 
of mathematics. And there can only be a semblance of 
ethics in which murder in the shape of war and the execu- 
tion of criminals is allowed, but no true ethics. The 
recognition of the life of every man as sacred is the first 
and only basis of all ethics. 

The doctrine of an ey« for an eye and a tooth for a 
tooth has been abrogated by Christianity, because it is the 
justification of immorality, and a mere semblance of equity, 
and has no real meaning. Life is a value which has no 
weight nor size, and cannot be compared to any other, and 
so there is no sense in destroying a life for a life. Be- 
sides, every social law aims at the amelioration of man's life. 
What way, then, can the annihilation of the life of some 
men ameliorate men's life? Annihilation of life cannot be 
a means of the amelioration of life ; it is a suicidal 
act. 

To destroy another life for the sake of justice is as 



314 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

though a man, to repair the misfortune of losing one arm, 
should cut off the other arm for the sake of equity. 

But putting aside the sin of deluding men into regarding 
the most awful crime as a duty, putting aside the revolting 
sin of using the name and authority of Christ to sanction 
what he most condemned, not to speak of the curse on 
those who cause these *' little ones " to offend — how can 
people who cherish their own way of life, their progress, 
even from the point of view of their personal security, 
allow the formation in their midst of an overwhelming 
force as senseless, cruel, and destructive as every govern- 
ment is organized on the basis of an army ? Even the 
most cruel band of brigands is not so much to be dreaded 
as such a government. 

The power of every brigand chief is at least so far 
limited that the men of his band preserve at least some 
human liberty, and can refuse to commit acts opposed to 
their conscience. But, owing to the perfection to w^hich 
the discipline of the army has been brought, there is no 
limit to check men who form part of a regularly organized 
government. There are no crimes so revolting that they 
would not readily be committed by men who form part of 
a government or army, at the will of anyone (such as Bou- 
langer. Napoleon, or Pougachef) who may chance to be at 
their head. 

Often when one sees conscription levies, military drills 
and maneuvers, police officers with loaded revolvers, and 
sentinels at their posts with bayonets on their rifles ; when 
one hears for whole days at a time (as I hear it in Hamov- 
niky where I live) the whistle of balls and the dull thud 
as they fall in the sand ; when one sees in the midst of a 
town where any effort at violence in self-defense is for- 
bidden, where the sale of powder and of chemicals, where 
furious driving and practicing as a doctor without a di- 
ploma, and so on, are not allowed, thousands of disciplined 



IS WITHIN' Your 315 

troops, trained to murder, and subject to one man's will; 
one asks oneself how can people who prize their security 
quietly allow it, and put up with it ? Apart from the 
immorality and evil effects of it, nothing can possibly be 
more unsafe. What are people thinking about ? I don't 
mean now Christians, ministers of religion, philanthropists, 
and moralists, but simply people who value their life, their 
security, and their comfort. This organization, we know, 
will work just as well in one man's hands as another's. 
To-day, let us assume, power is in the hands of a ruler 
who can be endured, but to-morrow it may be seized by a 
Biron, an Elizabeth, a Catherine, a Pougachef, a Napoleon 
I., or a Napoleon III. 

And the man in authority, endurable to-day, may become 
a brute to-morrow, or may be succeeded by a mad or im- 
becile heir, like the King of Bavaria or our Paul I. 

And not only the highest authorities, but all little satraps 
scattered over everywhere, like so many General Baranovs, 
governors, police officers even, and commanders of com- 
panies, can perpetrate the most awful crimes before there 
is time for them to be removed from office. And this is 
what is constantly happening. 

One involuntarily asks how can men let it go on, not 
from higher considerations only, but from regard to their 
own safety ? 

The answer to this question is that it is not all people 
who do tolerate it (some — the greater proportion — deluded 
and submissive, have no choice and have to tolerate any- 
thing). It is tolerated by those who only under such an 
organization can occupy a position of profit. They tolerate 
it, because for them the risks of suffering from a foolish or 
cruel man being at the head of thegovernment or the army 
are always less than the disadvantages to which they would 
be exposed by the destruction of the organization itself. 

A judge, a commander of police, a governor, or an officer 



3i6 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

will keep his position just the same under Boulanger or the 
republic, under Pougachef or Catherine. He will lose his 
profitable position for certain, if the existing order of things 
which secured it to him is destro3^ed. And so all these 
people feel no uneasiness as to who is at the head of the 
organization, they will adapt themselves to anyone ; they 
only dread the downfall of the organization itself, and that 
is the reason — though often an unconscious one — that they 
support it. 

One often wonders why independent people, who are not 
forced to do so in any way, the so-called elite of society, 
should go into the army in Russia, England, Germany, 
Austria, and even France, and seek opportunities of be- 
coming murderers. Why do even high-principled parents 
send their boys to military schools ? Why do mothers 
buy their children toy helmets, guns, and swords as play- 
things ? (The peasant's children never play at soldiers, 
by the way). Why do good men and even women, who 
have certainly no interest in war, go into raptures over 
the various exploits of Skobeloff and others, and vie with 
one another in glorifying them ? Why do men, who are 
not obliged to do so, and get no fee for it, devote, like the 
marshals of nobility in Russia, w^hole months of toil to 
a business physically disagreeable and morally painful — 
the enrolling of conscripts? Why do all kings and 
emperors wear the military uniform ? Why do they all 
hold military reviews, why do they organize maneuvers, 
distribute rewards to the military, and raise monuments to 
generals and successful commanders ? Why do rich men 
of independent position consider it an honor to perform a 
valet's duties in attendance on crowned personages, flatter- 
ing them and cringing to them and pretending to believe in 
their peculiar superiority ? Why do men who have ceased 
to believe in the superstitions of the mediaeval Church, 
and who could not possibly believe in them seriously and 



IS WITHIN your 317 

consistently, pretend to believe in and give their support 
Lo tiie demoralizing and blasphemous institution of the 
church ? Why is it that not only governments but private 
persons of the higher classes, try so jealously to maintain 
the ignorance of the people ? Why do they fall with such 
fury on any effort at breaking down religious superstitions 
or really enlightening the people ? Why do historians, 
novelists, and poets, who have no hope of gaining anything 
by their flatteries, make heroes of kings, emperors, and con- 
querors of past times ? Why do men, who call themselves 
learned, dedicate whole lifetimes to making theories to 
prove that violence employed by authority against the 
people is not violence at all, but a special right ? One often 
wonders why a fashionable lady or an artist, who, one 
would think, would take no interest in political or military 
questions, should always condemn strikes of working peo- 
ple, and defend war ; and should always be found without 
hesitation opposed to the one, favorable to the other. 

But one no longer wonders when one realizes that in the 
higher classes there is an unerring instinct of what tends 
to maintain and of what tends to destroy the organization 
by virtue of which they enjoy their privileges. The fashion- 
able lady had certainly not reasoned out that if there were 
no capitalists and no army to defend them, her husband 
would have no fortune, and she could not have her enter- 
tainments and her ball-dresses. And the artist certainly 
does not argue that he needs the capitalists and the troops 
to defend them, so that they may buy his pictures. But 
instinct, replacing reason in this instance, guides them 
unerringly. And it is precisely this instinct which leads all 
men, with few exceptions, to support all the religious, 
political, and economic institutions which are to their 
advantage. 

But is it possible that the higher classes support the 
existing order of things simply because it is to their 



3l3 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

advantage ? Cannot they see that this order of things is 
essentially irrational, that it is no longer consistent with the 
stage of moral development attained by people, and with 
public opinion, and that it is fraught with perils ? The 
governing classes, or at least the good, honest, and intelli- 
gent people of them, cannot but suffer from these funda- 
mental inconsistencies, and see the dangers with which 
they are threatened. And is it possible that all the millions 
of the lower classes can feel easy in conscience when they 
commit such obviously evil deeds as torture and murder 
from fear of punishment ? Indeed, it could not be so, 
neither the former nor the latter could fail to see the irra- 
tionality of their conduct, if the complexity of government 
organization did not obscure the unnatural senselessness of 
their actions. 

So many instigate, assist, or sanction the commission of 
every one of these actions that no one who has a hand in 
them feels himself morally responsible for it. 

It is the custom among assassins to oblige all the wit- 
nesses of a murder to strike the murdered victim, that the 
responsibility may be divided among as large a number of 
people as possible. The same principle in different forms 
is applied under the government organization in the per- 
petration of the crimes, without which no government 
organization could exist. Rulers always try to implicate 
as many citizens as possible in all the crimes committed in 
their support. 

Of late this tendency has been expressed in a very 
obvious manner by the obligation of all citizens to take 
part in legal processes as jurors, in the army as soldiers, in 
the local government, or legislative assembly, as electors or 
members. 

Just as in a wicker basket all the ends are so hidden 
away that it is hard to find them, in the state organization 
the responsibility for the crimes committed is so hidden 



IS WITHIN you:' 319 

away that men will commit the most atrocious acts without 
seeing their responsibility fqr them. 

In ancient times tyrants got credit for the crimes they 
committed, but in our day the most atrocious infamies, in- 
conceivable under the Neros, are perpetrated and no one 
gets blamed for them. 

One set of people have suggested, another set have pro- 
posed, a third have reported, a fourth have- decided, a fifth 
have confirmed, a sixth have given the order, and a seventh 
set of men have carried it out. They hang, they flog to 
death women, old men, and innocent people, as was done 
recently among us in Russia at the Yuzovsky factory, and 
is always being done everywhere in Europe and America in 
the struggle with the anarchists and all other rebels against 
the existing order ; they shoot and hang men by hundreds 
and thousands, or massacre millions in war, or break men's 
hearts in solitary confinement, and ruin their souls in the 
corruption of a soldier's life, and no one is responsible. 

At the bottom of the social scale soldiers, armed with 
guns, pistols, and sabers, injure and murder people, and 
compel men through these means to enter the army, and are 
absolutely convinced that the responsibility for the actions 
rests solely on the officers who command them. 

At the top of the scale — the Tzars, presidents, ministers, 
and parliaments decree these tortures and murders and 
military conscription, and are fully convinced that since they 
are either placed in authority by the grace of God or by 
the society they govern, which demands such decrees from 
them, they cannot be held responsible. Between these two 
extremes are the intermediary personages who superintend 
the murders and other acts of violence, and are fully con- 
vinced that the responsibility is taken off their shoulders 
partly by their superiors who have given the order, partly by 
the fact that such orders are expected from them by all who 
are at the bottom of the scale. 



320 THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

The authority who gives the orders and the authority 
who executes them at the two extreme ends of the state 
organization, meet together like the two ends of a ring ; 
they support and rest on one another and inclose all that 
lies within the ring. 

Without the conviction that there is a person or persons 
who will take the whole responsibility of his acts, not one 
soldier would ever lift a hand to commit a murder or other 
deed of violence. 

Without the conviction that it is expected by the whole 
people not a single king, emperor, president, or parliament 
would order murders or acts of violence. 

Without the conviction that there are persons of a higher 
grade who will take the responsibility, and people of a 
lower grade who require such acts for their welfare, not 
one of the intermediate class would superintend such deeds. 

The state is so organized that wherever a man is placed 
in the social scale, his irresponsibility is the same. The 
higher his grade the more he is under the influence of 
demands from below, and the less he is controlled by orders 
from above, and vice versa. 

All men, then, bound together by state organization, 
throw the responsibility of their acts on one another, the 
peasant soldier on the nobleman or merchant who is his 
officer, and the officer on the nobleman who has been 
appointed governor, the governor on the nobleman or 
son of an official who is minister, the minister on the 
member of the royal family who occupies the post of 
Tzar, and the Tzar again on all these officials, noblemen, 
merchants, and peasants. But that is not all. Besides the 
fact that men get rid of the sense of responsibility for their 
actions in this way, they lose their moral sense of responsi- 
bility also, by the fact that in forming themselves into 
a state organization they persuade themselves and each 
other so continually, and so indefatigably, that they are 



js WITH IX you:' 321 

not all equal, but ^'as the stars apart," that they come to 
believe it genuinely themselves. Thus some are per- 
suaded that they are not simple people like everyone else, 
but special people who are to be specially honored. It is 
instilled into another set of men by every possible means 
that they are inferior to others, and therefore must submit 
without a murmur to every order given them by their 
superiors. 

On this inequality, above all, on the elevation of some 
and the degradation of others, rests the capacity men have 
of being blind to the insanity of the existing order of life, 
and all the cruelty and criminality of the deception prac- 
ticed by one set of men on another. 

Those in whom the idea has been instilled that they are 
invested with a special supernatural grandeur and conse- 
quence, are so intoxicated with a sense of their own imag- 
inary dignity that they cease to feel their responsibility for 
what they do. 

While those, on the other hand, in whom the idea is 
fostered that they are inferior animals, bound to obey their 
superiors in everything, fall, through this perpetual humil- 
iation, into a strange condition of stupefied servility, and 
in this stupefied state do not see the significance of their 
actions and lose all consciousness of responsibility for 
what they do. 

The intermediate class, who obey the orders of their 
superiors on the one hand and regard themselves as 
superior beings on the other, are intoxicated by power and 
stupefied by servility at the same time and so lose the 
sense of their responsibility. 

One need only glance during a review at the commander- 
in-chief, intoxicated with self-importance, followed by his 
retinue, all on magnificent and gayly appareled horses, in 
splendid uniforms and wearing decorations, and see how 
they ride to the harmonious and solemn strains of music 



32 2 *^ THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

before the ranks of soldiers, all presenting arms and petri- 
fied with servility. One need only glance at this spectacle 
to understand that at such moments, when they are in a 
state of the most complete intoxication, commander-in- 
chief, soldiers, and intermediate officers alike, would be 
capable of committing crimes of which they would never 
dream under other conditions. 

The intoxication produced by such stimulants as parades, 
reviews, religious solemnities, and coronations, is, however, 
an acute and temporary condition ; but there are other 
forms of chronic, permanent intoxication, to which those 
are liable who have any kind of authority, from that of the 
Tzar to that of the lowest police officer at the street corner, 
and also those who are in subjection to authority and in a 
state of stupefied servility. The latter, like all slaves, 
always find a justification for their own servility, in ascrib- 
ing the greatest possible dignity and importance to those 
they serve. 

It is principally through this false idea of inequality, and 
the intoxication of power and of servility resulting from it, 
that men associated in a state organization are enabled to 
commit acts opposed to their conscience without the least 
scruple or remorse. 

Under the influence of this intoxication, men imagine 
themselves no longer simply men as they are, but some 
special beings — noblemen, merchants, governors, judges, 
officers, tzars, ministers, or soldiers — no longer bound by 
ordinary human duties, but by other duties far more 
weighty — the peculiar duties of a nobleman, merchant, 
governor, judge, officer, tzar, minister, or soldier. 

Thus the landowner, who claimed the forest, acted as he 
did only because he fancied himself not a simple man, hav- 
ing the same rights to life as the peasants living beside 
him and everyone else, but a great landowner, a member 
of the nobility, and under the influence of the intoxication 



IS WITHIN Your 323 

of power he felt his dignity offended by the peasants' claims. 
It was only through this feeling that, without considering 
the consequences that might follow, he sent in a claim to 
be reinstated in his pretended rights. 

In the same way the judges, who wrongfully adjudged 
the forest to the proprietor, did so simply because they 
fancied themselves not simply men like everyone else, and 
so bound to be guided in everything only by what they 
consider right, but, under the intoxicating influence of 
power, imagined themselves the representatives of the 
justice which cannot err ; while under the intoxicating 
influence of servility they imagined themselves bound to 
carry out to the letter the instructions inscribed in a certain 
book, the so-called law. In the same way all who take 
part in such an affair, from the highest representative of 
authority who signs his assent to the report, from the 
superintendent presiding at the recruiting sessions, and 
the priest who deludes the recruits, to the lowest soldier 
who is ready now to fire on his own brothers, imagine, in 
the intoxication of power or of servility, that they are 
some conventional characters. They do not face the ques- 
tion that is presented to them, whether or not they ought 
to take part in what their conscience judges an evil act, 
but fancy themselves various conventional personages — 
one as the Tzar, God's anointed, an exceptional being, 
called to watch over the happiness of one hundred millions 
of men ; another as the representative of nobility ; another 
as a priest, who has received special grace by his ordination ; 
another as a soldier, bound by his military oath to carry 
out all he is commanded without reflection. 

Only under the intoxication of the power or the servility 
of their imagined positions could all these people act as 
they do. 

Were not they all firmly convinced that their respective 
vocations of tzar, minister, governor, judge, nobleman, 



324 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

landowner, superintendent, officer, and soldier are some- 
thing real and important, not one of them would even think 
without horror and aversion of taking part in what they 
do now. 

The conventional positions, established hundreds of 
years, recognized for centuries and by everyone, distin- 
guished by special names and dresses, and, moreover, con- 
firmed by every kind of solemnity, have so penetrated into 
men's minds through their senses, that, forgetting the 
ordinary conditions of life common to all, they look at 
themselves and everyone only from this conventional point 
of view, and are guided in their estimation of their own 
actions and those of others by this conventional standard. 

Thus we see a man of perfect sanity and ripe age, simply 
because he is decked out with some fringe, or embroidered 
keys on his coat tails, or a colored ribbon only fit for some 
gayly dressed girl, and is told that he is a general, a 
chamberlain, a knight of the order of St. Andrew, or some 
similar nonsense, suddenly become self-important, proud, 
and even happy, or, on the contrary, grow melancholy and 
unhappy to the point of falling ill, because he has failed to 
obtain the expected decoration or title. Or what is still 
more striking, a young man, perfectly sane in every other 
matter, independent and beyond the fear of want, simply 
because he has been appointed judicial prosecutor or dis- 
trict commander, separates a poor widow from her little 
children, and shuts her up in prison, leaving her children 
uncared for, all because the unhappy woman carried on 
a secret trade in spirits, and so deprived the revenue of 
twenty-five rubles, and he does not feel the least pang of 
remorse. Or what is still more amazing ; a man, other- 
wise sensible and good-hearted, simply because he is given 
a badge or a uniform to wear, and told that he is a guard 
or customs officer, is ready to fire on people, and neither 
he nor those around him regard him as to blame for it, but, 



IS WITHIN Your 325 

on the contrary, would regard him as to blame if he did 
not fire. To say nothing of judges and juries who con- 
demn men to death, and soldiers who kill men by thousands 
without the slightest scruple merely because it has been 
instilled into them that they are not simply men, but 
jurors, judges, generals, and soldiers. 

This strange and abnormal condition of men under state 
organization is usually expressed in the following words : 
"As a man, I pity him; but as guard, judge, general, 
governor, tzar, or soldier, it is my duty to kill or torture 
him." Just as though there were some positions conferred 
and recognized, which would exonerate us from the obliga- 
tions laid on each of us by the fact of our common 
humanity. 

So, for example, in the case before us, men are going to 
murder and torture the famishing, and they admit that in 
the dispute between the peasants and the landowner the 
peasants are right (all those in command said as much 
to me). They know that the peasants are wretched, 
poor, and hungry, and the landowner is rich and inspires 
no sympathy. Yet they are all going to kill the peasants 
to secure three thousand rubles for the landowner, only 
because at that moment they fancy themselves not men but 
governor, official, general of police, officer, and soldier, 
respectively, and consider themselves bound to obey, not 
the eternal demands of the conscience of man, but the 
casual, temporary demands of their positions as officers or 
soldiers. 

Strange as it may seem, the sole explanation of this 
astonishing phenomenon is that they are in the condition 
of the hypnotized, who, they say, feel and act like the 
creatures they are commanded by the hypnotizer to repre- 
sent. When, for instance, it is suggested to the hypnotized 
subject that he is lame, he begins to walk lame, that he is 
blind, and he cannot see, that he is a wild beast, and he 



326 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

begins to bite. This is the state, not only of those who 
were going on this expedition, but of all men who fulfill 
their state and social duties in preference to and in detri- 
ment of their human duties. 

The essence of this state is that under the influence of 
one suggestion they lose the power of criticising their 
actions, and therefore do, without thinking, everything con- 
sistent with the suggestion to which they are led by 
example, precept, or insinuation. 

The difference between those hypnotized by scientific 
men and those under the influence of the state hypnotism, 
is that an imaginary position is suggested to the former 
suddenly by one person in a very brief space of time, and 
so the hypnotized state appears to us in a striking and 
surprising form, while the imaginary position suggested by 
state influence is induced slowly, little by little, impercep- 
tibly from childhood, sometimes during years, or even 
generations, and not in one person alone but in a whole 
society. 

" But,'* it will be said, *^at all times, in all societies, the 
majority of persons — all the children, all the women 
absorbed in the bearing and rearing of the young, all the 
great mass of the laboring population, who are under the 
necessity of incessant and fatiguing physical labor, all those 
of weak character by nature, all those who are abnormally 
enfeebled intellectually by the effects of nicotine, alcohol, 
opium, or other intoxicants — are always in a condition of 
incapacity for independent thought, and are either in sub- 
jection to those who are on a higher intellectual level, or 
else under the influence of family or social traditions, of 
what is called public opinion, and there is nothing unnatural 
or incongruous in their subjection.'* 

And truly there is nothing unnatural in it, and the tend- 
ency of men of small intellectual power to follow the lead 
of those on a higher level of intelligence is a constant law, 



IS WITHIN Your 327 

and it is owing to it that men can live in societies and on 
the same principles at all. The minority consciously adopt 
certaiit rational principles through their correspondence 
with reason, while the majority act on the same principles 
unconsciously because it is required by public opinion. 

Such subjection to public opinion on the part of the 
unintellectual does not assume an unnatural character till 
the public opinion is split into two. 

But there are times when a higher truth, revealed at first 
to a few persons, gradually gains ground till it has taken 
hold of such a number of persons that the old public 
opinion, founded on a lower order of truths, begins to totter 
and the new is ready to take its place, but has not yet been 
firmly established. It is like the spring, this time of tran- 
sition, when the old order of ideas has not quite broken up 
and the new has not quite gained a footing. Men begin to 
criticise their actions in the light of the new truth, but in 
the meantime in practice, through inertia and tradition, 
they continue to follow the principles which once represented 
the highest point of rational consciousness, but are now in 
flagrant contradiction with it. 

Then men are in an abnormal, wavering condition, 
feeling the necessity of following the new ideal, and 
yet not bold enough to break with the old-established 
traditions. 

Such is the attitude in regard to the truth of Christian- 
ity not only of the men in the Toula train, but of the 
majority of men of our times, alike of the higher and the 
lower orders. 

Those of the ruling classes, having no longer any reason- 
able justification for the profitable positions they occupy, 
are forced, in order to keep them, to stifle their higher 
rational faculty of loving, and to persuade themselves that 
their positions are indispensable. And those of the lower 
classes, exhausted by toil and brutalized of set purpose, are 



328 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

kept in a permanent deception, practiced deliberately and 
continuously by the higher classes upon them. 

Only in this way can one explain the amazing contradic- 
tions with which our life is full, and of which a striking 
example was presented to me by the expedition I met on 
the 9th of September ; good, peaceful men, known to me 
personally, going with untroubled tranquillity to perpetrate 
the most beastly, senseless, and vile of crimes. Had not 
they some means of stifling their conscience, not one of 
them would be capable of committing a hundredth part of 
such a villainy. 

It is not that they have not a conscience which forbids 
them from acting thus, just as, even three or four hundred 
years ago, when people burnt men at the stake and put 
them to the rack they had a conscience which prohibited 
it ; the conscience is there, but it has been put to sleep — in 
those in command by what the psychologists call auto-sug- 
gestion ; in the soldiers, by the direct conscious hypnotiz- 
ing exerted by the higher classes. 

Though asleep, the conscience is there, and in spite of 
the hypnotism it is already speaking in them, and it may 
awake. 

All these men are in a position like that of a man under 
hypnotism, commanded to do something opposed to every- 
thing he regards as good and rational, such as to kill his 
mother or his child. The hypnotized subject feels himself 
bound to carry out the suggestion — he thinks he cannot 
stop — but the nearer he gets to the time and the place of 
the action, the more the benumbed conscience begins to 
stir, to resist, and to try to awake. And no one can say 
beforehand whether he will carry out the suggestion or 
not ; which will gain the upper hand, the rational conscience 
or the irrational suggestion. It all depends on their rela- 
tive strength. 

That is just the case with the men in the Toula train and 



IS WITHIN Your 329 

in general with everyone carrying out acts of state violence 
in our day. 

There was a time when men who set out with the object of 
murder and violence, to make an example, did not return 
till they had carried out their object, and then, untroubled 
by doubts or scruples, having calmly flogged men to death, 
they returned home and caressed their children, laughed, 
amused themselves, and enjoyed the peaceful pleasures of 
family life. In those days it never struck the landowners 
and wealthy men who profited by these crimes, that the 
privileges they enjoyed had any direct connection with 
these atrocities. But now it is no longer so. Men know 
now, or are not far from knowing, what they are doing and 
for what object they do it. They can shut their eyes and 
force their conscience to be still, but so long as their eyes 
are opened and their conscience undulled, they must all 
—those who carry out and those who profit by these crimes 
alike — see the import of them. Sometimes they realize it 
only after the crime has been perpetrated, sometimes they 
realize it just before its perpetration. Thus those who com- 
manded the recent acts of violence in Nijni-Novgorod, 
Saratov, Orel, and the Yuzovsky factory realized their sig- 
nificance only after their perpetration, and now those who 
commanded and those who carried out these crimes are 
ashamed before public opinion and their conscience. I 
have talked to soldiers who had taken part in these crimes, 
and they always studiously turned the conversation off the 
subject, and when they spoke of it it was with horror and 
bewilderment. There are cases, too, when men come to 
themselves just before the perpetration of the crime. Thus 
I know the case of a sergeant-major who had been beaten 
by two peasants during the repression of disorder and had 
made a complaint. The next day, after seeing the atroci- 
ties perpetrated on the other peasants, he entreated the 
commander of his company to tear up his complaint and 



33^ " THE /KINGDOM OF GOD 

let off the two peasants. I know cases when soldiers, com- 
manded to fire, have refused to obey, and I know many 
cases of officers who have refused to command expeditions 
for torture and murder. So that men sometimes come to 
their senses long before perpetrating the suggested crime, 
sometimes at the very moment before perpetrating it, 
sometimes only afterward. 

The men traveling in the Toula train were going with 
the object of killing and injuring their fellow-creatures, but 
none could tell whether they would carry out their object 
or not. However obscure his responsibility for the affair 
is to each, and however strong the idea instilled into all of . 
them that they are not men, but governors, officials, officers, 
and soldiers, and as such beings can violate every human 
duty, the nearer they approach the place of the execution, the 
stronger their doubts as to its being right, and this doubt 
will reach its highest point when the very moment for 
carrying it out has come. 

The governor, in spite of all the stupefying effect of his 
surroundings, cannot help hesitating when the moment 
comes to give final decisive command. He knows that the 
action of the Governor of Orel has called down upon him 
the disapproval of the best people, and he himself, influ- 
enced by the public opinion of the circles in which he 
moves, has more than once expressed his disapprobation of 
him. He knows that the prosecutor, who ought to have 
come, flatly refused to have anything to do with it, because 
he regarded it as disgraceful. He knows, too, that there 
may be changes any day in the government, and that what 
was a ground for advancement yesterday may be the cause 
of disgrace to-morrow. And he knows that there is a 
press, if not in Russia, at least abroad, which may report 
the affair and cover him with ignominy forever. He is 
already conscious of a change in public opinion which con- 
demns what was formerly a duty. Moreover, he cannot 



/s WITHIN Your 33 i 

feel fully assured that his soldiers will at the last moment 
obey him. He is wavering, and none can say beforehand 
what he will do. 

All the officers and functionaries who accompany him 
experience in greater or less degree the same emotions. 
In the depths of their hearts they all know that what they 
are doing is shameful, that to take part in it is a discredit 
and blemish in the eyes of some people whose opinion they 
value. They know that after murdering and torturing the 
defenseless, each of them will be ashamed to face his 
betrothed or the woman he is courting. And besides, they 
too, like the governor, are doubtful whether the soldiers' 
obedience to orders can be reckoned on. What a con- 
trast with the confident air they all put on as they sauntered 
about the station and platform ! Inwardly they were not 
only in a state of suffering but even of suspense. Indeed 
they only assumed this bold and composed manner to con- 
ceal the wavering within. And this feeling increased as 
they drew near the scene of action. 

And imperceptible as it was, and strange as it seems to 
say so, all that mass of lads, the soldiers, who seemed so 
submissive, were in precisely the same condition. 

These are not the soldiers of former days, who gave up 
the natural life of industry and devoted their whole exist- 
ence to debauchery, plunder, and murder, like the Roman 
legionaries or the warriors of the Thirty Years* War, or 
even the soldiers of more recent times who served for 
twenty-five years in the army. They have mostly been 
only lately taken from their families, and are full of the 
recollections of the good, rational, natural life they have 
left behind them. 

All these lads, peasants for the most part, know what is 
the business they have come about ; they know that the 
landowners always oppress their brothers the peasants, and 
that therefore it is most likely the same thing here. More- 



332 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

over, a majority of them can now read, and the books they 
read are not all such as exalt a military life ; there are 
some which point out its immorality. Among them are 
often free-thinking comrades — who have enlisted volun- 
tarily — or young officers of liberal ideas, and already the 
first germ of doubt has been sown in regard to the uncon- 
ditional legitimacy and glory of their occupation. 

It is true that they have all passed through that terrible, 
skillful education, elaborated through centuries, which kills 
all initiative in a man, and that they are so trained to me- 
chanical obedience that at the word of command : ** f^ire ! 
— All the line ! — Fire ! " and so on, their guns will rise of 
themselves and the habitual movements will be performed. 
But ^* Fire ! *' now does not mean shooting into the sand 
for amusement, it means firing on their broken-down, ex- 
ploited fathers and brothers whom they see there in the 
crowd, with women and children shouting and waving their 
arms. Here they are — one with his scanty beard and 
patched coat and plaited shoes of reed, just like the father 
left at home in Kazan or Riazan province ; one with gray 
beard and bent back, leaning on a staff like the old grand- 
father ; one, a young fellow in boots and a red shirt, just 
as he was himself a year ago — he, the soldier who must 
fire upon him. There, too, a woman in reed shoes and 
pa?iyova, just like the mother left at home. 

Is it possible they must fire on them ? And no one 
knows what each soldier will do at the last minute. The 
least word, the slightest allusion would be enough to stop 
them. 

At the last moment they will all find themselves in the 
position of a hypnotized man to whom it has been suggested 
to chop a log, who coming up to what has been indicated 
to him as a log, with the ax already lifted to strike, sees 
that it is not a log but his sleeping brother. He may per- 
form the act that has been suggested to him, and he may 



IS WITHIN you:' 333 

come to his senses at the moment of performing it. In the 
same way all these men may come to themselves in time or 
they may go on to the end. 

If they do not come to themselves, the most fearful 
crime will be committed, as in Orel, and then the hypnotic 
suggestion under which they act will be strengthened in all 
other men. If they do come to themselves, not only this ter- 
rible crime will not be perpetrated, but many also who hear of 
the turn the affair has taken will be emancipated from the 
hypnotic influence in which they were held, or at least will 
be nearer being emancipated from it. 

Even if a few only come to themselves, and boldly ex- 
plain to the others all the wickedness of such a crime, the 
influence of these few may rouse the others to shake off 
the controlling suggestion, and the atrocity will not be 
perpetrated. 

More than that, if a few men, even of those who are not 
taking part in the affair but are only present at the prepara- 
tions for it, or have heard of such things being done in the 
past, do not remain indifferent but boldly and plainly ex- 
press their detestation of such crimes to those who have to 
execute them, and point out to them all the senselessness, 
cruelty, and wickedness of such acts, that alone will be 
productive of good. 

That was what took place in the instance before us. It 
was enough for a few men, some personally concerned in 
the affair and others simply outsiders, to express their dis- 
approval of floggings that had taken place elsewhere, and 
their contempt and loathing for those who had taken part 
in inflicting them, for a few persons in the Toula case to 
express their repugnance to having any share in it ; for a 
lady traveling by the train, and a few other bystanders at 
the station, to express to those who formed the expedition 
their disgust at what they were doing ; for one of the com- 
manders of a company, who was asked for troops for the 



334 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

restoration of order, to reply that soldiers ought not to be 
butchers — and thanks to these and a few other seemingly 
insignificant influences brought to bear on these hypnotized 
men, the affair took a completely different turn, and the 
troops, when they reached the place, did not inflict any 
punishment, but contented themselves with cutting down 
the forest and giving it to the landowner. 

Had not a few persons had a clear consciousness that 
what they were doing was wrong, and consequently influ- 
enced one another in that direction, what was done at Orel 
would have taken place at Toula. Had this consciousness 
been still stronger, and had the influence exerted been 
therefore greater than it was, it might well have been that 
the governor with his troops would not even have ventured 
to cut down the forest and give it to the landowner. Had 
that consciousness been stronger still, it might well have 
been that the governor would not have ventured to go to 
the scene of action at all ; even that the minister would 
not have ventured to form this decision or the Tzar to 
ratify it. 

All depends, therefore, on the strength of the conscious- 
ness of Christian truth on the part of each individual man. 

And, therefore, one would have thought that the efforts 
of all men of the present day who profess to wish to w^ork 
for the welfare of humanity would have been directed to 
strengthening this consciousness of. Christian truth in them- 
selves and others. 

But, strange to say, it is precisely those people who pro- 
fess most anxiety for the amelioration of human life, and are 
regarded as the leaders of public opinion, who assert that 
there is no need to do that, and that there are other more 
effective means for the amelioration of men's condition. 
They affirm that the amelioration of human life is effected 
not by the efforts of individual men, to recognize and prop- 
agate the truth, but by the gradual modification of the 



IS WITHIN Your 335 

general conditions of life, and that therefore the efforts of 
individuals should be directed to the gradual modification 
of external conditions for the better. For every advocacy 
of a truth inconsistent with the existing order by an indi- 
vidual is, they maintain, not only useless but injurious, 
since in provokes coercive measures on the part of the 
authorities, restricting these individuals from continuing 
any action useful to society. According to this doctrine 
all modifications in human life are brought about by pre- 
cisely the same laws as in the life of the animals. 

So that, according to this doctrine, all the founders of 
religions, such as Moses and the prophets, Confucius, Lao- 
Tse, Buddha, Christ, and others, preached their doctrines 
and their followers accepted them, not because they loved 
the truth, but because the political, social, and above all 
economic conditions of the peoples among whom these 
religions arose were favorable for their origination and 
development. 

And therefore the chief efforts of the man who wishes to 
serve society and improve the condition of humanity ought, 
according to this doctrine, to be directed not to the elucida- 
tion and propagation of truth, but to the improvement of 
the external political, social, and above all economic condi- 
tions. And the modification of these conditions is partly 
effected by serving the government and introducing liberal 
and progressive principles into it, partly in promoting the 
development of industry and the propagation of socialistic 
ideas, and most of all by the diffusion of science. Accord- 
ing to this theory it is of no consequence whether you pro- 
fess the truth revealed to you, and therefore realize it in 
your life, or at least refrain from committing actions opposed 
to the truth, such as serving the government and strength- 
ening its authority when you regard it as injurious, profit- 
ing by the capitalistic system when you regard it as wrong, 
showing veneration for various ceremonies which you 



33^ *' THE KINGDOM OP GOD 

believe to be degrading superstitions, giving support to the 
law when you believe it to be founded on error, serving as 
a soldier, taking oaths, and lying, and lowering yourself 
generally. It is useless to refrain from all that ; what is of 
use is not altering the existing forms of life, but submitting 
to them against your own convictions, introducing liberal- 
ism into the existing institutions, promoting commerce, the 
propaganda of socialism, and the triumphs of what is called 
science, and the diffusion of education. According to this 
theory one can remain a landowner, merchant, manufac- 
turer, judge, official in government pay, officer or soldier, 
and still be not only a humane man, but even a socialist and 
revolutionist. 

Hypocrisy, which had formerly only a religious basis in 
the doctrine of original sin, the redemption, and the Church, 
has in our day gained a new scientific basis and has con- 
sequently caught in its nets all those who had reached 
too high a stage of development to be able to find support 
in religious hypocrisy. So that while in former days a man 
who professed the religion of the Church could take part in 
all the crimes of the state, and profit by them, and still 
regard himself as free from any taint of sin, so long as he 
fulfilled the external observances of his creed, nowadays all 
who do not believe in the Christianity of the Church, find 
similar well-founded irrefutable reasons in science for 
regarding themselves as blameless and even highly moral 
in spite of their participation in the misdeeds of govern- 
ment and the advantages they gain from them. 

A rich landowner — not only in Russia, but in France, 
England, Germany, or America — lives on the rents exacted 
from the people living on his land, and robs these generally 
poverty-stricken people of all he can get from them. This 
man's right of property in the land rests on the fact that at 
every effort on the part of the oppressed people, without 
his consent, to make use of the land he considers his, troops 



IS WITHIN you:' 337 

are called out to subject them to punishment and murder. 
One would have thought that it was obvious that a man 
living in this way was an evil, egoistic creature and could 
not possibly consider himself a Christian or a liberal. One 
would have supposed it evident that the first thing such 
a man must do, if he wishes to approximate to Christianity 
or liberalism, would be to cease to plunder and ruin men by 
means of acts of state violence in support of his claim to the 
land. And so it would be if it were not for the logic of 
hypocrisy, which reasons that from a religious point of view 
possession or non-possession of land is of no consequence 
for salvation, and from the scientific point of view, giving 
up the ownership of land is a useless individual renuncia- 
tion, and that the welfare of mankind is not promoted in 
that way, but by a gradual modification of external forms. 
And so we see this man, without the least trouble of mind 
or doubt that people will believe in his sincerity, organizing 
an agricultural exhibition, or a temperance society, or 
sending some soup and stockings by his wife or children to 
three old women, and boldly in his family, in drawing 
rooms, in committees, and in the press, advocating the 
Gospel or humanitarian doctrine of love for one's neighbor 
in general and the agricultural laboring population in 
particular whom he is continually exploiting and oppressing. 
And other people who are in the same position as he 
believe him, commend him, and solemnly discuss with him 
measures for ameliorating the condition of the working- 
class, on whose exploitation their whole life rests, devising 
all kinds of possible methods for this, except the one with- 
out which all improvement of their condition is impossible, 
/. ^., refraining from taking from them the land necessary 
for their subsistence. (A striking example of this hypoc- 
risy was the solicitude displayed by the Russian land- 
owners last year, their efforts to combat the famine which 
they had caused, and by which they profited, selling not 



iS^ *' Ti/£ KINGDOM OF COD 

only bread at the highest price, but even potato hauim at 
five rubles the dessiatine (about 2^ acres) for fuel to the 
freezing peasants.) 

Or take a merchant whose whole trade— like all trade 
indeed — is founded on a series of trickery, by means of 
which, profiting by the ignorance or need of others, he buys 
goods below their value and sells them again above their 
value. One would have fancied it obvious that a man 
whose whole occupation was based on what in his own 
language is called swindling, if it is done under other con- 
ditions, ought to be ashamed of his position, and could not 
any way, while he continues a merchant, profess himself a 
Christian or a liberal. 

But the sophistry of hypocrisy reasons that the merchant 
can pass for a virtuous man without giving up his per- 
nicious course of action ; a religious man need only have 
faith and a liberal man need only promote the modification 
of external conditions — the progress of industry. And so 
we see the merchant (who often goes further and commits 
acts of direct dishonesty, selling adulterated goods, using 
false weights and measures, and trading in products injuri- 
ous to health, such as alcohol and opium) boldly regarding 
himself and being regarded by others, so long as he does 
not directly deceive his colleagues in business, as a pattern 
of probity and virtue. And if he spends a thousandth part 
of his stolen wealth on some public institution, a hospital 
or museum or school, then he is even regarded as the bene- 
factor of the people on the exploitation and corruption of 
whom his whole prosperity has been founded : if he sacri- 
fices, too, a portion of his ill-gotten gains on a Church and 
the poor, then he is an exemplary Christian. 

A manufacturer is a man whose whole income consists of 
value squeezed out of the workmen, and whose whole occu- 
pation is based on forced, unnatural labor, exhausting 
whole generations of men. It would seem obvious that if 



IS WITHIN Your 339 

this man professes any Christian or liberal principles, he 
must first of all give up ruining human lives for his own 
profit. But by the existing theory he is promoting indus- 
try, and he ought not to abandon his pursuit. It would 
even be injuring society for him to do so. fAnd so we see 
this man, the harsh slave-driver of thousands of men, build- 
ing almshouses with little gardens two yards square for the 
workmen broken down in toiling for him, and a bank, and 
a poorhouse, and a hospital — fully persuaded that he has 
amply expiated in this way for all the human lives morally 
and physically ruined by him — and calmly going on with 
his business, taking pride in it.^ 

Any civil, religious, or military official in government 
employ, who serves the state from vanity, or, as is most 
often the case, simply for the sake of the pay wrung from 
the harassed and toilworn working classes (all taxes, how- 
ever raised, always fall on labor), if he, as is very seldom 
the case, does not directly rob the government in the usual 
way, considers himself, and is considered by his fellows, as 
a most useful and virtuous member of society. 

CA judge or a public prosecutor knows that through his 
sentence or his prosecution hundreds or thousands of poor 
wretches are at once torn from their families and thrown 
into prison, where they may go out of their minds, kill 
themselves with pieces of broken glass, or starve them- 
selves ; he knows that they have wives and mothers and 
children, disgraced and made miserable by separation from 
them, vainly begging for pardon for them or some allevia- 
tion of their sentence, and this judge or this prosecutor is 
so hardened in his hypocrisy that he and his fellows and 
his wife and his household are all fully convinced that he 
may be a most exemplary man. According to the meta- 
physics of hypocrisy it is held that he is doing a work of 
public utility. And this man who has ruined hundreds, 
thousands of men, who curse him and are driven to despera- 



340 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

tion by his action, goes to mass, a smile of shining benevo- 
lence on his smooth face, in perfect faith in good and in 
God, listens to the Gospel, caresses his children, preaches 
moral principles to them, and is moved by imaginary 
sufferings.N 

^All these men and those who depend on them, their 
wives, tutors, children, cooks, actors, jockeys, and so on, 
are living on the blood which by one means or another, 
through one set of blood-suckers or another, is drawn out 
of the working class, and everyday their pleasures cost 
hundreds or thousands of days of labor. They see the 
sufferings and privations of these laborers and their chil- 
dren, their aged, their wives, and their sick, they know the 
punishments inflicted on those who resist this organized 
plunder, and far from decreasing, far from concealing their 
luxury, they insolently display it before these oppressed 
laborers who hate them, as though intentionally provoking 
them with the pomp of their parks and palaces, their 
theaters, hunts, and races. At the same time they continue 
to persuade themselves and others that they are all much 
concerned about the welfare of these working classes, 
whom they have always trampled under their feet, and on 
Sundays, richly dressed, they drive in sumptuous carriages 
to the houses of God built in very mockery of Christianity, 
and there listen to men, trained to this work of deception, 
who in white neckties or in brocaded vestments, according 
to their denomination, preach the love for their neighbor 
which they all gainsay in their lives. And these people 
have so entered into their part that they seriously believe 
that they really are what they pretend to be^ 

rrhe universal hypocrisy has so entered into the flesh 
and blood of all classes of our modern society, it has 
reached such a pitch that nothing in that way can rouse 
indignation. Hypocrisy in the Greek means " acting," and 
acting — playing a part — is always possible, The represent- 



IS WITHIN Your 341 

atives of Christ give their blessing to the ranks of 
murderers holding their guns loaded against their brothers ; 
"for prayer " priests, ministers of various Christian sects 
are always present, as indispensably as the hangman, at 
executions, and sanction by their presence the compati- 
bility of murder with Christianity (a clergyman assisted at 
the attempt at murder by electricity in America) — but such 
facts cause no one any surprise.) 

There was recently held at Petersburg an international 
exhibition of instruments of torture, handcuffs, models of 
solitary cells, that is to say instruments of torture worse 
than knouts or rods, and sensitive ladies and gentlemen 
went and amused themselves by looking at them. 

No one is surprised that together with its recognition of 
liberty, equality, and fraternity, liberal science should prove 
the necessity of war, punishment, customs, the censure, the 
regulation of prostitution, the exclusion of cheap foreign 
laborers, the hindrance of emigration, the justifiableness 
of colonization, based on poisoning and destroying whole 
races of men called savages, and so on. 

People talk of the time when all men shall profess what 
is called Christianity (that is, various professions of faith 
hostile to one another), when all shall be well-fed and 
clothed, when all shall be united from one end of the 
world to the other by telegraphs and telephones, and be 
able ta communicate by balloons, when all the working 
classes are permeated by socialistic doctrines, when the 
Trades Unions possess so many millions of members and 
so many millions of rubles, when everyone is educated and 
all can read newspapers and learn all the sciences. 

^ut what good or useful thing can come of all these im- 
provements, if men do not speak and act in accordance 
with what they believe ^to be the truth ?") 

The condition of men is the result of their disunion. 
Their disunion results from their not following the truth 



342 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

which is one, but falsehoods which are many. (The sole 
means of uniting men is their union in the truth. ^» And 
therefore the more sincerely men strive toward the truth, 
the nearer they get to unity. 

C^ut how can men be united in the truth or even approx- 
imate to it, if they do not even express the truth they know, 
but hold that there is no need to do so, and pretend to 
regard as truth what they believe to be false ?^ 
<■' And therefore no improvement is possible so long as 
men are hypocritical and hide the truth from themselves, 
so long as they do not recognize that their union and there- 
fore their welfare is only possible in the truth, and do not 
put the recognition and profession of the truth revealed 
to them higher than everything else. > 

All the material improvements that religious and scien- 
tific men can dream of may be accomplished ; all men may 
accept Christianity, and all the reforms desired by the 
Bellamys may be brought about with every possible addi- 
tion and improvement, but if the hypocrisy which rules 
nowadays still exists, if men do not profess the truth they 
know, but continue to feign belief in what they do not be- 
lieve and veneration for what they do not respect, their 
condition will remain the same, or even grow worse and 
worse. The more men are freed from privation ; the more 
telegraphs, telephones, books, papers, and journals there 
are ; the more means there will be of diffusing inconsistent 
lies and hypocrisies, and the more disunited and conse- 
quently miserable will men become, which indeed is what 
we see actually taking place. \ 

All these material reforms may be realized, but the posi- 
tion of humanity will not be improved. But only let each 
man, according to his powers, at once realize in his life the 
truth he knows, or at least cease to support the falsehoods 
he is supporting in the place of the truth, and at once, in 
this year 1893,^ we should see such reforms as we do not 



IS WITHIN Your 343 

dare to hope for within a century — the emancipation of 
men and the reign of truth upon earth. 
^Not without good reason was Christ's only harsh and 
threatening reproof directed against hypocrites and hypoc- 
risy. It is not theft nor robbery nor murder nor fornica- 
tion, but falsehood, the special falsehood of hypocrisy, 
which corrupts men, brutalizes them and makes them vin- 
dictive, destroys all distinction between right and wrong in 
their conscience, deprives them of what is the true meaning 
of all real human life, and debars them from all progress 
toward perfectionT]) 

Those who do evil through ignorance of the truth pro- 
voke sympathy with their victims and repugnance for their 
actions, they do harm only to those they attack ; but those 
who know the truth and do evil masked by hypocrisy, 
injure themselves and their victims, and thousands of other 
men as well who are led astray by the falsehood with which 
the wrongdoing is disguised. 

<rrhieves, robbers, murderers, and cheats, who commit 
crimes recognized by themselves and everyone else as evil, 
serve as an example of what ought not to be done, and 
deter others from simi4ar crimes. But those who commit 
the same thefts, robberies, murders, and other crimes, dis- 
guising them under all kinds of religious or scientific or 
humanitarian justifications, as all landowners, merchants, 
manufacturers, and government officials do, provoke others 
to imitation, and so do harm not only to those who are 
directly the victims of their crimes, but to thousands and 
millions of men whom they corrupt by obliterating their 
sense of the distinction between right and wrong. 

(^A single fortune gained by trading in goods necessary to 
the people or in goods pernicious in their effects, or by 
financial speculations, or by acquiring land at a low price 
the value of which is increased by the needs of the popula- 
tion, or by an industry ruinous to the health and life of 



344 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

those employed in it, or by military or civil service of the 
state, or by any employment which trades on men's evil 
instincts — a single fortune acquired in any of these ways, 
not only with the sanction, but even with the approbation 
of the leading men in society, and masked with an ostenta- 
tion of philanthropy, corrupts men incomparably more than 
millions of thefts and robberies committed against the 
recognized forms of law and punishable as crimesD 

< A single execution carried out by prosperous educated 
men uninfluenced by passion, with the approbation and 
assistance of Christian ministers, and represented as some- 
thing necessary and even just, is infinitely more corrupting 
and brutalizing to men than thousands of murders com- 
mitted by uneducated working people under the influence 
of passion. An execution such as was proposed by Jou- 
kovsky, which would produce even a sentiment of religious 
emotion in the spectators, would be one of the most per- 
verting actions imaginable. {See vol. iv. of the works of 
Joukovsky.) 

( Every war, even the most humanely conducted, with all 
its ordinary consequences, the destruction of harvests, 
robberies, the license and debauchery, and the murder with 
the justifications of its necessity and justice, the exaltation 
and glorification of military exploits, the worship of the 
flag, the patriotic sentiments, the feigned solicitude for the 
wounded, and so on, does more in one year to pervert men's 
minds than thousands of robberies, murders, and arsons 
perpetrated during hundreds of years by individual men 
under the influence of passion. ^ 

TThe luxurious expenditure of a single respectable and 
so-called honorable family, even within the conventional 
limits, consuming as it does the produce of as many days 
of labor as would suffice to provide for thousands living in 
privation near, does more to pervert men's minds than 
thousands of the violent orgies of coarse tradespeople, 



75 WITHIN Your 345 

officers, and workmen of drunken and debauched habits, 
who smash up glasses and crockery for amusement. 
vOne solemn religious procession, one service, one sermon 
from the altar-steps or the pulpit, in which the preacher 
does not believe, produces incomparably more evil than 
thousands of swindling tricks, adulteration of food, and so 
on*> 

We talk of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. But the 
hypocrisy of our society far surpasses the comparatively 
innocent hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They had at least an 
external religious law, the fulfillment of which hindered 
them from seeing their obligations to their neighbors. 
Moreover, these obligations were not nearly so clearly 
defined in their day. Nowadays we have no such religious 
law to exonerate us from our duties to our neighbors ( I am 
not speaking now of the coarse and ignorant persons who 
still fancy their sins can be absolved by confession to a 
priest or by the absolution of the Pope). On the contrary, 
the law of the Gospel which we all profess in one form or 
another directly defines these duties. Besides, the duties 
which had then been only vaguely and mystically expressed 
by a few prophets have now been so clearly formulated, 
have become such truisms, that they are repeated even by 
schoolboys and journalists. And so it would seem that 
men of to-day cannot pretend that they do not know these 
dutiesr< 

C A man of the modern world who profits by the order of 
things based on violence, and at the same time protests 
that he loves his neighbor and does not observe what he is 
doing in his daily life to his neighbor, is like a brigand who 
has spent his life in robbing men, and who, caught at last, 
knife in hand, in the very act of striking his shrieking 
victim, should declare that he had no idea that what he was 
doing was disagreeable to the man he had robbed and was 
prepared to murder. Just as this robber and murderer 



34^ " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

could not deny what was evident to everyone, so it would 
seem that a man living upon the privations of the oppressed 
classes cannot persuade himself and others that he desires 
the welfare of those he plunders, and that he does not 
know how the advantages he enjoys are obtained^ 

It is impossible to convince ourselves that we do not 
know that there are a hundred thousand men in prison in 
Russia alone to guarantee the security of our property and 
tranquillity, and that we do not know of the law tribunals 
in which we take part, and which, at our initiative, condemn 
those who have attacked our property or our security to 
prison, exile, or forced labor, whereby men no worse than 
those who condemn them are ruined and corrupted ; or 
that we do not know that we only possess all that we do 
possess because it has been acquired and is defended for us 
by murder and violence. 

We cannot pretend that we do not see the armed police- 
man who marches up and down beneath our windows to 
guarantee our security while we eat our luxurious dinner, 
or look at the new piece at the theater, or that we are 
unaware of the existence of the soldiers who will make 
their appearance with guns and cartridges directly our 
property is attacked. 

We know very well that we are only allowed to go on 
eating our dinner, to finish seeing the new play, or to enjoy 
to the end the ball, the Christmas fete, the promenade, the 
races or the hunt, thanks to the policeman's revolver or 
the soldier's rifle, which will shoot down the famished out- 
cast who has been robbed of his share, and who looks 
round the corner with covetous eyes at our pleasures, 
ready to interrupt them instantly, were not the policeman 
and the soldier there prepared to run up at our first call 
for help. 

And therefore just as a brigand caught in broad daylight 
in the act cannot persuade us that he did not lift his knife 



IS WITHIN Your 347 

in order to rob his victim of his purse, and had no thought 
of killing him, we too, it would seem, cannot persuade our- 
selves or others that the soldiers and policemen around us 
are not to guard us, but only for defense against foreign 
foes, and to regulate traffic and fetes and reviews ; we 
cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know 
that men do not like dying of hunger, bereft of the right 
to gain their subsistence from the earth on which they live ; 
that they do not like working underground, in the water, 
or in stifling heat, for ten to fourteen hours a day, at 
night in factories to manufacture objects for our pleasure. 
One would imagine it impossible to deny what is so obvious. 
Yet it is denied. 

CStill, there are, among the rich, especially among the 
young, and among women, persons whom I am glad to 
meet more and more frequently, who, when they are shown 
in what way and. at what cost their pleasures are purchased, 
do not try to conceal the truth, but hiding their heads in 
their hands, cry : ** Ah ! don't speak of that. If it is so, 
life is impossible.'* But though there are such sincere 
people who even though they cannot renounce their fault, 
at least see it, the vast majority of the men of the modern 
world have so entered into the parts they play in their 
hypocrisy that they boldly deny what is staring everyone in 
the face."^ 

*' All that is unjust," they say ; " no one forces the people 
to work for the landowners and manufacturers. That is an 
affair of free contract. Great properties and fortunes are 
necessary, because they provide and organize work for the 
working classes. And labor in the factories and workshops 
is not at all the terrible thing you make it out to be. Even 
if there are some abuses in factories, the government and 
the public are taking steps to obviate them and to make 
the labor of the factory workers much easier, and even 
agreeable. The working classes are accustomed to physical 



348 ^* THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

labor, and are, so far, fit for nothing else. The poverty of 
the people is not the result of private property in land, nor 
of capitalistic oppression, but of other causes : it is the 
result of the ignorance, brutality, and intemperance of 
the people. And we men in authority who are striving 
against this impoverishment of the people by wise legisla- 
tion, we capitalists who are combating it by the extension 
of useful inventions, we clergymen by religious instruc- 
tion, and we liberals by the formation of trades unions, 
and the diffusion of education, are in this way increasing 
the prosperity of the people without changing our own 
positions. We do not want all to be as poor as the poor ; 
we want all to be as rich as the rich. As for the assertion 
that men are ill treated and murdered to force them to 
work for the profit of the rich, that is a sophism. The 
army is only called out against the mob, when the people, in 
ignorance of their own interests, make disturbances and 
destroy the tranquillity necessary for the public welfare. 
In the same way, too, it is necessary to keep in restraint 
the malefactors for whom the prisons and gallows are 
established. We ourselves wish to suppress these forms of 
punishment and are working in that direction.*' 
(Hypocrisy in our day is supported on two sides : by 
false religion and by false science. And it has reached 
such proportions that if we were not living in its midst, we 
could not believe that men could attain such a pitch of 
self-deception. Men of the present day have come into 
such an extraordinary condition, their hearts are so 
hardened, that seeing they see not, hearing they do not 
hear, and understand not.J 

Men have long been living in antagonism to their con- 
science. If it were not for hypocrisy they could not go on 
living such a life. This social organization in opposition 
to their conscience only continues to exist because it is dis- 
guised by hypocrisy. ' 



/S WITHIN YOU,'' 349 

And the greater the divergence between actual life and 
men's conscience, the greater the extension of hypocrisy. 
But even hypocrisy has its limits. And it seems to me 
that we have reached those limits in the present day. 

Every man of the present day with the Christian princi- 
ples assimilated involuntarily in his conscience, finds him- 
self in precisely the position of a man asleep who dreams 
that he is obliged to do something which even in his dream 
he knows he ought not to do. He knows this in the depths 
of his conscience, and all the same he seems unable to 
change his position ; he cannot stop and cease doing what 
he ought not to do. And just as in a dream, his position 
becoming more and more painful, at last reaches such a 
pitch of intensity that he begins sometimes to doubt the 
reality of what is passing and makes a moral effort to shake 
off the nightmare which is oppressing him. 

This is just the condition of the average man of our 
Christian society. He feels that all that he does himself 
and that is done around him is something absurd, hideous, 
impossible, and opposed to his conscience ; he feels that his 
position is becoming more and more unendurable and 
reaching a crisis of intensity. 

^It is not possible that we modern men, with the Christian 
sense of human dignity and equality permeating us soul 
and body, with our need for peaceful association and unity 
between nations, should really go on living in such a way 
that every joy, every gratification we have is bought by 
the sufferings, by the lives of our brother men, and more- 
over, that we should be every instant within a hair's-breadth 
of falling on one another, nation against nation, like wild 
beasts, mercilessly destroying men's lives and labor, only 
because some benighted diplomatist or ruler says or writes 
some stupidity to another equally benighted diplomatist or 
ruler.N 

It is impossible. Yet every man of our day sees that 



350 ** THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

this is so and awaits the calamity. And the situation 
becomes more and more insupportable. 

And as the man who is dreaming does not believe that 
what appears to him can be truly the reality and tries to 
wake up to the actual real world again, so the average man 
of modern days cannot in the bottom of his heart believe 
that the awful position in which he is placed and which is 
growing worse and worse can be the reality, and tries to 
wake up to a true, real life, as it exists in his conscience. 

And just as the dreamer need only make a moral effort 
and ask himself, '* Isn't it a dream?" and the situation 
which seemed to him so hopeless will instantly disappear, 
and he will wake up to peaceful and happy reality, so the 
man of the modern world need only make a moral effort to 
doubt the reality presented to him by his own hypocrisy 
and the general hypocrisy around him, and to ask himself, 
*^ Isn't it all a delusion ?" and he will at once, like the 
dreamer awakened, feel himself transported from an imag- 
inary and dreadful world to the true, calm, and happy 
reality. 

And to do this a man need accomplish no great feats or 
exploits. He need only make a moral effort. 

But can a man make this effort ? 

According to the existing theory so essential to support 
hypocrisy, man is not free and cannot change his life. 

** Man cannot change his life, because he is not free. He 
is not free, because all his actions are conditioned by pre- 
viously existing causes. And whatever the man may do 
there -are always some causes or other through which he 
does these or those acts, and therefore man cannot be free 
and change his life," say the champions of the metaphysics 
of hypocrisy. And they \vould be perfectly right if man 
were a creature without conscience and incapable of mov- 
ing toward the truth ; that is to say, if after recognizing 
a new truth, man always remained at the same stage of 



IS WITHIN Your 351 

moral development. But man is a creature with a con- 
science and capable of attaining a higher and higher 
degree of truth. And therefore even if man is not free 
as regards performing these or those acts because there 
exists a previous cause for every act, the very causes of 
his acts, consisting as they do for the man of conscience of 
the recognition of this or that truth, are within his own 
control. 

C^o that though man may not be free as regards the 
performance of his actions, he is free as regards the foun- 
dation on which they are performed. Just as the mechan- 
ician who is not free to modify the movement of his loco- 
motive when it is in motion, is free to regulate the machine 
beforehand so as to determine what the movement is to be.^ 

Whatever the conscious man does, he acts just as he 
does, and not otherwise, only because he recognizes that to 
act as he is acting is in accord with the truth, or because 
he has recognized it at some previous time, and is now 
only through inertia, through habit, acting in accordance 
with his previous recognition of truth. 

In any case, the cause of his action is not to be found in 
any given previous fact, but in the consciousness of a given 
relation to truth, and the consequent recognition of this or 
that fact as a sufficient basis for action. 
^Whether a man eats or does not eat, works or rests, runs 
risks or avoids them, if he has a conscience he acts thus 
only because he considers it right and rational, because he 
considers that to act thus is in harmony with truth, or else 
because he has made this reflection in the past. 

The recognition or non-recognition of a certain truth 
depends not on external causes, but on certain other causes 
within the man himself. So that at times under external 
conditions apparently very favorable for the recognition of 
truth, one man will not recognize it, and another, on the 
contrary, under the most unfavorable conditions will, with- 



352 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

out apparent cause, recognize it. (As it is said in the Gos- 
pel, " No man can come unto me, except the Father which 
hath sent me draw him." That is to say, the recognition of 
truth, which is the cause of all the manifestations of human 
life, does not depend on external phenomena, but on certain 
inner spiritual characteristics of the man which escape our 
observation.'^ 

And therefore man, though not free in his acts, always 
feels himself free in what is the motive of his acts — the 
recognition or non-recognition of truth. And he feels him- 
self independent not only of facts external to his own per- 
sonality, but even of his own actions. 

Thus a man who under the influence of passion has 
committed an act contrary to the truth he recognizes, 
remains none the less free to recognize it or not to recog- 
nize it ; that is, he can by refusing to recognize the truth 
regard his action as necessary and justifiable, or he may 
recognize the truth and regard his act as wrong and censure 
himself for it. 

Thus a gambler or a drunkard who does not resist temp- 
tation and yields to his passion is still free to recognize 
gambling and drunkenness as wrong or to regard them as a 
harmless pastime. In the first case even if he does not at 
once get over his passion, he gets the more free from it the 
more sincerely he recognizes the truth about it ; in the 
second case he will be strengthened in his vice and will 
deprive himself of every possibility of shaking it off. 

In the same way a man who has made his escape alone 
from a house on fire, not having had the courage to save his 
friend, remains free, recognizing the truth that a man ought 
to save the life of another even at the risk of his own, to 
regard his action as bad and to censure himself for it, or, 
not recognizing this truth, to regard his action as natural 
and necessary and to justify it to himself. In the first 
case, if he recognizes the truth in spite of his departure 



IS WITHIN your 353 

from it, he prepares for himself in the future a whole series 
of acts of self-sacrifice necessarily flowing from this recog- 
nition of the truth ; in the second case, a whole series of 
egoistic acts. 

Not that a man is always free to recognize or to refuse 
to recognize every truth. There are truths which he has 
recognized long before or which have been handed down to 
him by education and tradition and accepted by him on 
faith, and to follow these truths has become a habit, a second 
nature with him ; and there are truths, only vaguely, as it 
were distantly, apprehended by him. The man is not free 
to refuse to recognize the first, nor to recognize the second 
class of truths. But there are truths of a third kind, which 
have not yet become an unconscious motive of action, but 
yet have been revealed so clearly to him that he cannot 
pass them by, and is inevitably obliged to do one thing or 
the other, to recognize or not to recognize them. And it 
is in regard to these truths that the man's freedom mani- 
fests itself. 

Every man during his life finds himself in regard to 
truth in the position of a man walking in the darkness with 
light thrown before him by the lantern he carries. He 
does not see what is not yet lighted up by the lantern ; he 
does not see what he has passed which is hidden in the 
darkness ; but at every stage of his journey he sees what 
is lighted up by the lantern, and he can always choose one 
side or the other of the road. 

There are always unseen truths not yet revealed to the 
man's intellectual vision, and there are other truths out- 
lived, forgotten, and assimilated by him, and there are also 
certain truths that rise up before the light of his reason 
and require his recognition. And it is in the recognition 
or non-recognition of these truths that what we call his 
freedom is manifested. 

All the difficulty and seeming insolubility of the question 



354 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

of the freedom of man results from those who tried to 
solve the question imagining man as stationary in his re- 
lation to the truth. 

£Man is certainly not free if we imagine him stationary, 
and if we forget that the life of a man and of humanity is 
nothing but a continual movement from darkness into light, 
from a lower stage of truth to a higher, from a truth more 
alloyed with errors to a truth more purified from themQ 

! Man would not be free if he knew no truth at all, and in 
the same way he would not be free and would not even 
have any idea of freedom if the whole truth which was to 
guide him in life had been revealed once for all to him in 
all its purity without any admixture of errorP 

; But man is not stationary in regard to truth, but every 
individual man as he passes through life, and humanity as 
a whole in the same way, is continually learning to know 
a greater and greater degree of truth, and growing more 
and more free from error. ^ 

And therefore men are in a threefold relation to truth. 
Some truths have been so assimilated by them that they 
have become the unconscious basis of action, others are 
only just on the point of being revealed to him, and a 
third class, though not yet assimilated by him, have been 
revealed to him with sufficient clearness to force him to 
decide either to recognize them or to refuse to recognize 
them. 

These, then, are the truths which man is free to recog- 
nize or to refuse to recognize. 

C^he liberty of man does not consist in the power of act- 
ing independently of the progress of life and the influences 
arising from it, but in the capacity for recognizing and 
acknowledging the truth revealed to him, and becoming 
the free and joyful participator in the eternal and infinite 
work of God, the life of the world ; or on the other hand 
for refusing to recognize the truth, and so being a miser- 



IS WITHIN Your 355 

able and reluctant slave dragged whither he has no desire 
to go. 

(Truth not only points out the way along which human 
life ought to move, but reveals also the only way along 
which it can move. And therefore all men must willingly 
or unwillingly move along the way of truth, some spon- 
taneously accomplishing the task set them in life, others 
submitting involuntarily to the law of life. Man's freedom 
lies in the power of this choice/^ 

This freedom within these narrow limits seems so 
insignificant to men that they do not notice it. Some — 
the determinists — consider this amount of freedom so 
trifling that they do not recognize it at all. Others — the 
champions of complete free will — keep their eyes fixed on 
their hypothetical free will and neglect this which seemed 
to them such a trivial degree of freedom. 

This freedom, confined between the limits of complete 
ignorance of the truth and a recognition of a part of the 
truth, seems hardly freedom at all, especially since, 
whether a man is willing or unwilling to recognize the 
truth revealed to him, he will be inevitably forced to carry 
it out in life. 

A horse harnessed with others to a cart is riot free to 
refrain from moving the cart. If he does not move for- 
ward the cart will knock him down and go on dragging 
him with it, whether he will or not. But the horse is free 
to drag the cart himself or to be dragged with it. And so 
it is with man. 

^OVhether this is a great or small degree of freedom in com- 
parison with the fantastic liberty we should like to have, it 
is the only freedom that really exists, and in it consists the 
only happiness attainable by man. 

^^nd more than that, this freedom is the sole means of 
accomplishing the divine work of the life of the world. ) 
According to Christ's doctrine, the man who sees the sig- 



35^ *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

nificance of life in the domain in which it is not free, in the 
domain of effects, that is, of acts, has not the true life. 
According to the Christian doctrine, that man is living in 
the truth who has transported his life to the domain in 
which it is free — the domain of causes, that is, the knowl- 
edge and recognition^ the profession and realization in life 
of revealed truth. " 

PDevoting his life to works of the flesh, a man busies him- 
self with actions depending on temporary causes outside 
himself. He himself does nothing really, he merely seems 
to be doing something. In reality all the acts which seem 
to be his are the work of a higher power, and he is not the 
creator of his own life, but the slave of it. Devoting his 
life to the recognition and fulfillment of the truth revealed 
to him, he identifies himself with the source of universal life 
and accomplishes acts not personal, and dependent on con- 
ditions of space and time, but acts unconditioned by pre- 
vious causes, acts which constitute the causes of everything 
else, and have an infinite, unlimited significance. 
.**The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the vio- 
lent take it by force." (Matt. xi. 12.) 

It is this violent effort to rise above external conditions 
.- to the recognition and realization of truth by w^hich the 
I kingdom of heaven is taken, and it is this effort of violence 
\which must and can be made in our times. 
^Men need only understand this, they need only cease to 
trouble themselves about the general external conditions in 
which they are not free, and devote one-hundredth part of 
the energy they waste on those material things to that in 
which they are free, to the recognition and realization of 
the truth which is before them, and to the liberation of them- 
selves and others from deception and hypocrisy, and, with- 
out effort or conflict, there would be an end at once of the 
false organization of life which makes men miserable, and 
threatens them with worse calamities in the future. And 



IS WITHIN Your 357 

then the kingdom of God would be realized, or at least that 
first stage of it for which men are ready now by the degree 
of development of their conscience./ 

Just as a single shock may be sufficient, when a liquid is 
saturated with some salt, to precipitate it at once in crystals, 
a slight effort may be perhaps all that is needed now that 
the truth already revealed to men may gain a mastery over 
hundreds, thousands, millions of men, that a public opinion 
consistent with conscience may be established, and through 
this change of public opinion the whole order of life may be 
transformed. /And it depends upon us to make this effort." 

^^t each of us only try to understand and accept the 
Christian truth which in the most varied forms surrounds 
us on all sides and forces itself upon us; let us only cease 
from lying and pretending that we do not see this truth or 
wish to realize it, at least in what it demands from us above 
all else; only let us accept and boldly profess the truth to 
which we are called, and we should find at once that hun- 
dreds, thousands, millions of men are in the same position 
as we, that they see the truth as we do, and dread as we do 
to stand alone in recognizing it, and like us are only wait- 
ing for others to recognize it also.^ 

£Only let men cease to be hypocrites, and they would at 
once see that this cruel social organization, which holds 
them in bondage, and is represented to them as something 
stable, necessary, and ordained of God, is already tottering 
and is only propped up by the falsehood of hypocrisy, with 
which we, and others like us, support it.) 

But if this is so, if it is true that it depends on us to break 
down the existing organization of life, have we the right to 
destroy it, without knowing clearly what we shall set up in 
its place? What will become of human society when the 
existing order of things is at an end? 

**What shall we find the other side of the walls of the 
world we are abandoning? 



35^ '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

**Fear will come upon us — a void, a vast emptiness, free- 
dom — how are we to go forward not knowing whither, how 
face loss, not seeing hope of gain? ... If Columbus had 
reasoned thus he would never have weighed anchor. It was 
madness to set off upon the ocean, not knowing the route, 
on the ocean on which no one had sailed, to sail toward a 
land whose existence was doubtful. By this madness he 
discovered a new world. Doubtless if the peoples of the 
world could simply transfer themselves from one furnished 
mansion to another and better one — it would make it much 
easier; but unluckily there is no one to get humanity's new 
dwelling ready for it. The future is even worse than the 
ocean — there is nothing there — it will be what men and cir- 
cumstances make it. 

* *If you are content with the old world, try to preserve it, 
it is very sick and cannot hold out much longer. iBut if you 
cannot bear to live in everlasting dissonance between your 
beliefs and your life, thinking one thing and doing another, 
get out of the mediaeval whited sepulchers, and face your 
fears. I know very well it is not easy.*) 

**It is not a little thing to cut one's self off from all to 
which a man has been accustomed from his birth, with 
which he has grown up to maturity. Men are ready for 
tremendous sacrifices,, but not for those which life demands 
of them. Are they ready to sacrifice modern civilization, 
their manner of life, their religion, the received conventional 
morality? 

* * Are we ready to give up all the results we have attained 
with such effort, results of which we have been boasting for 
three centuries; to give up every convenience and charm of 
our existence, to prefer savage youth to the senile decay of 
civilization, to pull down the palace raised for us by our 
ancestors only for the pleasure of having a hand in the 
founding of a new house, which will doubtless be built long 
after we are gone?" (Herzen, vol, v. p. 55.) 



IS WITHIN Your 359 

Thus wrote almost half a century ago the Russian writer, 
who with prophetic insight saw clearly then, what even the 
most unreflecting man sees to-day, the impossibility, that is, 
of life continuing on its old basis, and the necessity of 
establishing new forms of life. 

It is clear now from the very simplest, most commonplace 
point of view, that it is madness to remain under the roof of 
a building which cannot support its weight, and that we 
must leave it. / And indeed it is difficult to imagine a posi- 
tion more wretched than that of the Christian world to-day, 
with its nations armed against one another, with its con- 
stantly increasing taxation to maintain its armies, with the 
hatred of the working class for the rich ever growing more 
intense, with the Damocles sword of war forever hanging 
over the heads of all, ready every instant to fall, certain to 
fall sooner or later.) 

(Hardly could any revolution be more disastrous for the 
great mass of the population than the present order or rather 
disorder of our life, with its daily sacrifices to exhausting 
and unnatural toil, to poverty, drunkenness, and profligacy, 
with all the horrors of the war that is at hand, which will 
swallow up in one year more victims than all the revolutions 
of the century./ 

What will become of humanity if each of us performs the 
duty God demands of us through the conscience implanted 
within us? Will not harm come if, being wholly in the 
power of a master, I carry out, in the workshop erected and 
directed by him, the orders he gives me, strange though 
they may seem to me who do not know the Master's final 
aims? 

But it is not even this question **What will happen?" 
that agitates men when they hesitate to fulfill the Master's 
will. They are troubled by the question how to live with- 
out those habitual conditions of life which we call civiliza- 
tion, culture, art, and science. We feel ourselves all the 



360 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

burdensomeness of life as it is ; we see also that this organi- 
zation of life must inevitably be our ruin, if it continues. 
At the same time we want the conditions of our life which 
arise out of this organization — our civilization, culture, art, 
and science — to remain intact. It is as though a man, liv- 
ing in an old house and suffering from cold and all sorts of 
inconvenience in it, knowing, too, that it is on the point of 
falling to pieces, should consent to its being rebuilt, but only 
on the condition that he should not be required to leave it: 
a condition which is equivalent to refusing to have it rebuilt 
at all. 

**But what if I leave the house and give up every con- 
venience for a time, and the new house is not built, or is 
built on a different plan so that I do not find in it the com- 
forts to which I am accustomed?** But seeing that the 
materials and the builders are here, there is every likelihood 
that the new house will on the contrary be better built than 
the old one. And at the same time, there is not only the 
likelihood but the certainty that the old house will fall down 
and crush those who remain within it. Whether the old 
habitual conditions of life are supported, or whether they 
are abolished and altogether new and better conditions 
arise; in any case, there is no doubt we shall be forced to 
leave the old forms of life which have become impossible 
and fatal, and must go forward to meet the future. 
''Civilization, art, science, culture, will disappear!" 
Yes, but all these we know are only various manifesta- 
tions of truth, and the change that is before us is only to 
be made for the sake of a closer attainment and realization 
of truth. How then can the manifestations of truth disap- 
pear through our realizing it? These manifestations will 
be different, higher, better, but they will not cease to be."^ 
Only what is false in them will be destroyed; all the rruth 
there was in them will only be stronger and more flour- 
ishing. 



IS WITHIN Your 361 

(Take thought, oh, men, and have faith in the Gospel, in 
whose teaching is your happiness. If you do not take 
thought, you will perish just as the men perished, slain by 
Pilate, or crushed by the tower of Siloam ; as millions of 
men have perished, slayers and slain, executing and exe- 
cuted, torturers and tortured alike, and as the man foolishly 
perished, who filled his granaries full and made ready for a 
long life and died the very night that he planned to begin 
his life. Take thought and have faith in the Gospel, Christ 
said eighteen hundred years ago, and he says it with even 
greater force now that the calamities foretold by him have 
come to pass, and the senselessness of our life has reached 
the furthest point of suffering and madnessJ^ 

Nowadays, after so many centuries of fruitless efforts to 
make our life secure by the pagan organization of life, it 
must be evident to everyone that all efforts in that direction 
only introduce fresh dangers into personal and social life, 
and do not render it more secure in any way. 
^Whatever names we dignify ourselves with, whatever uni- 
forms we wear, whatever priests we anoint ourselves 
before, however many millions we possess, however many 
guards are stationed along our road, however many police- 
men guard our wealth, however many so-called criminals, 
revolutionists, and anarchists we punish, whatever exploits 
we have performed, whatever states we may have founded, 
fortresses and towers we may have erected — from Babel to 
the Eiffel Tower — there are two inevitable conditions of 
life, confronting all of us, which destroy its whole meaning; 
(i) death, which may at any moment pounce upon each of 
us ; and (2) the transitoriness of all our works, which so soon 
pass away and leave no trace. 7" Whatever we may do — 
found companies, build palace^ and monuments, write songs 
and poems — it is all not for long time. Soon it passes 
away, leaving no trace. / And therefore, however we may 
conceal it from ourselves, we cannot help seeing that the 



362 '» THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

significance of our life cannot lie in our personal fleshly 
existence, the prey of incurable suffering and inevitable 
death, nor in any social institution or organization. Who- 
ever you may be who are reading these lines, think of your 
position and of your duties — not of your position as land- 
owner, merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, 
priest, soldier, which has been temporarily allotted you by 
men, and not of the imaginary duties laid on you by those 
positions, but of your real positions in eternity as a creature 
who at the will of Someone has been called out of uncon- 
sciousness after an eternity of non-existence to which you 
may return at any moment at his will. Think of your 
duties — not your supposed duties as a landowner to your 
estate, as a merchant to your business, as emperor, minis- 
ter, or official to the state, but of your real duties, the 
duties that follow from your real position as a being called 
into life and endowed with reason and love.*^ 

Are you doing what he demands of you wlio has sent you 
into the world, and to whom you will soon return? Are 
you doing what he wills? Are you doing his will, when as 
landowner or manufacturer you rob the poor of the fruits of 
their toil, basing your life on this plunder of the workers, 
or when, as judge or governor, you ill treat men, sentence 
them to execution, or when as soldiers you prepare for war, 
kill and plunder? 

You will say that the world is so made that this is inevi- 
table, and that you do not do this of your own free will, but 
because you are forced to do so. But can it be that you 
have such a strong aversion to men's sufferings, ill treat- 
ment, and murder, that you have such an intense need of 
love and co-operation with your fellows that you see clearly 
that only by the recognition of the equality of all, and by 
mutual services, can the greatest possible happiness be real- 
ized; that your head and your heart, the faith you profess, 
and even science itself tell you the same thing, and yet that 



IS WITHIN Your 363 

in spite of it all you can be forced by some confused and 
complicated reasoning to act in direct opposition to all this ; 
that as landowner or capitalist you are bound to base your 
whole life on the oppression of the people; that as emperor 
or president you are to command armies, that is, to be the 
head and commander of murderers ; or that as government 
official you are forced to take from the poor their last pence 
for rich men to profit and share them among themselves ; or 
that as judge or juryman you could be forced to sentence 
erring men to ill treatment and death because the truth was 
not revealed to them, or above all, for that is the basis of 
all the evil, that you could be forced to become a soldier, 
and renouncing your free will and your human sentiments, 
could undertake to kill anyone at the command of other 
men? ^ 

.It cannot be. 
C^Even if you are told that all this is necessary for the 
maintenance of the existing order of things, and that this 
social order with its pauperism, famines, prisons, gallows, 
armies, and wars is necessary to society; that still greater 
disasters would ensue if this organization were destroyed ; 
all that is said only by those who profit by this organiza- 
tion, while those who suffer from it — and they are ten times 
as numerous — think and say quite the contrary. And at 
the bottom of your heart you know yourself that it is not 
true, that the existing oragnization has outlived its time, 
and must inevitably be reconstructed on new principles, 
and that consequently there is no obligation upon you to 
sacrifice your sentiments of humanity to support it. 

TAbove all, even if you allow that this organization is 
necessary, why do you believe it to be your duty to maintain 
it at the cost of your best feelings? Who has made you the 
nurse in charge of this sick and moribund organization? 
Not society nor the state nor anyone; no one has asked 
you to undertake this; you who fill your position of land- 



364 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

owner, merchant, tzar, priest, or soldier know very well 
that you occupy that position by no means with the unselfish 
aim of maintainhig the organization of life necessary to 
men's happiness, but simply in your own interests, to satisfy 
your own covetousness or vanity or ambition or indolence 
or cowardice. If you did not desire that position, you 
would not be doing your utmost to retain it. Try the ex- 
periment of ceasing to commit the cruel, treacherous, and 
base actions that you are constantly committing in order to 
retain your position, and you will lose it at once. Try the 
simple experiment, as a government official, of giving up 
lying, and refusing to take a part in executions and acts of 
violence ; as a priest, of giving up deception ; as a soldier, 
of giving up murder; as landowner or manufacturer, of giv- 
ing up defending your property by fraud and force; and you 
will at once lose the position which you pretend is forced 
upon you, and which seems burdensome to you. 

A man cannot be placed against his will in a situation 
opposed to his conscience. 

If you find yourself in such a position it is not because it 
is necessary to anyone whatever, but simply because you 
wish it. And therefore knowing that your position is re- 
pugnant to your heart and your head, and to your faith, and 
even to the science in which you believe, you cannot help 
reflecting upon the question whether in retaining it, and 
above all trying to justify it, you are doing what you ought 
to do. 

You might risk making a mistake if you had time to see 
and retrieve your fault, and if you ran the risk for some- 
thing of some value. But when you know beyond all doubt 
that you may disappear any minute, without the least possi- 
bility either for yourself or those you draw after you into 
your error, of retrieving the mistake, when you know that 
whatever you may do in the external organization of life it 
will all disappear as quickly and surely as you will yourself, 



\ 



/S WITHIN VOUr 365 

and will leave no trace behind, it is clear that you have no 
reasonable ground for running the risk of such a fearful 
mistake. 

It would be perfectly simple and clear if you did not by 
your hypocrisy disguise the truth which has so unmistakably 
been revealed to us. 

r^^hare all that you have with others, do not heap up 
riches, do not steal, do not cause suffering, do not kill, do 
not unto others what you would not they should do unto 
you, all that has been said not eighteen hundred, but five 
thousand years ago, and there could be no doubt of the truth 
of this law if it were not for hypocrisy. Except for hypoc- 
risy men could not have failed, if not to put the law in prac- 
tice, at least to recognize it, and admit that it is wrong not 
to put it in practice.7 

But you will say that there is the public good to be con- 
sidered, and that on that account one must not and ought 
not to conform to these principles ; for the public good one 
may commit acts of violence and murder. It is better for 
one man to die than that the whole people perish, you will 
say like Caiaphas, and you sign the sentence of death of 
one man, of a second, and a third ; you load your gun 
against this man who is to perish for the public good, you 
imprison him, you take his possessions. You say that you 
commit these acts of cruelty because you are a part of the 
society and of the state; that it is your duty to serve them, 
and as landowner, judge, emperor, or soldier to conform to 
their laws. But besides belonging to the state and having 
duties created by that position, you belong also to eternity 
and to God, who also lays duties upon you. And just as 
your duties to your family and to society are subordinate to 
your superior duties to the state, in the same way the latter 
must necessarily be subordinated to the duties dictated to 
you by the eternal life and by God. And just as it would 
be senseless to pull up the telegraph posts for fuel for a 



366 *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

family or society and thus to increase its welfare at the 
expense of public interests, in the same way it is senseless 
to do violence, to execute, and to murder to increase the 
welfare of the nation, because that is at the expense of the 
interests of humanity. 

Your duties as a citizen cannot but be subordinated to 
the superior obligations of the eternal life of God, and can- 
not be in opposition to them. As Christ's disciples said 
eighteen centuries ago: ** Whether it be right in the sight of 
God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye*' 
(Acts iv. 19); and, **We ought to obey God rather than 
men" (Acts v. 29). 

It is asserted that, in order that the unstable order of 
things, established in one corner of the world for a few men, 
may not be destroyed, you ought to commit acts of violence 
which destroy the eternal and immutable order established 
by God and by reason. Can that possibly be? 

And therefore you cannot but reflect on your position as 
landowner, manufacturer, judge, emperor, president, minis- 
ter, priest, and soldier, which is bound up with violence, 
deception, and murder, and recognize its unlawfulness. 

I do not say that if you are a landowner you are bound 
to give up your lands immediately to the poor; if a capital- 
ist or manufacturer, your money to your workpeople; or 
that if you are Tzar, minister, official, judge, or general, 
you are bound to renounce immediately the advantages of 
your position ; or if a soldier, on whom all the system of 
violence is based, to refuse immediately to obey in spite of 
all the dangers of insubordination. 

If you do so, you will be doing the best thing possible. 
But it may happen, and it is most likely, that you will not 
have the strength to do so. You have relations, a family, 
subordinates and superiors ; you are under an influence so 
powerful that you cannot shake it off; but you. can always 
recognize the truth and refuse to tell a lie about it. You 



IS WITHIN Your 367 

need not declare that you are remaining a landowner, manu- 
facturer, merchant, artist, or writer because it is useful to 
mankind; that you are governor, prosecutor, or tzar, not 
because it is agreeable to you, because you are used to it, 
but for the public good ; that you continue to be a soldier, 
not from fear of punishment, but because you consider the 
army necessary to society. You can always avoid lying in 
this way to yourself and to others, and you ought to do so; 
because the one aim of your life ought to be to purify your- 
self from falsehood and to confess the truth. And you 
need only do that and your situation will chan'ge directly of 
itself. 

ClThere is one thing, and only one thing, in which it is 
granted to you to be free in life, all else being beyond your 
power: that is to recognize and profess the truth. "" 

And yet simply from the fact that other men as misguided 
and as pitiful creatures as yourself have made you soldier, 
tzar, landowner, capitalist, priest, or general, you under- 
take to commit acts of violence obviously opposed to your 
reason and your heart, to base your existence on the misfor- 
tunes of others, and above all, instead of filling the one 
duty of your life, recognizing and professing the truth, you 
feign not to recognize it and disguise it from yourself and 
others. 

And what are the conditions in which you are doing this? 
You who may die any instant, you sign sentences of death, 
you declare war, you take part iait, you judge, you punish, 
you plunder the working people, you live luxuriously in the 
midst of the poor, and teach weak men who have confidence 
in you that this must be so, that the duty of men is to do 
this, and yet it may happen at the moment when you are 
acting thus that a bacterium or a bull may attack you and 
you will fall and die, losing forever the chance of repairing 
the harm you have done to others, and above all to yourself, 
in uselessly wasting a life which has been given you only 



368 '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU:* 

once in eternity, without having accomplished the only 
thing you ought to have done.) 

/^However commonplace and out of date it may seem to 
us, however confused we may be by hypocrisy and by the 
hypnotic suggestion which results from it, nothing can 
destroy the certainty of this simple and clearly defined truth. 
No external conditions can guarantee our life, which is 
attended with inevitable sufferings and infallibly terminated 
by death, and which consequently can have no significance 
except in the constant accomplishment of what is demanded 
by the Power which has placed us in life with a sole certain 
guide — the rational conscience. ^ 

That is why that Power cannot require of us what is irra- 
tional and impossible: the organization of our temporary 
external life, the life of society or of the state. VThat Power 
demands of us only what is reasonable, certain, and possi- 
ble: to serve the kingdom of God, that is, to contribute to 
the establishment of the greatest possible union between all 
living beings — a union possible only in the truth; and to 
recognize and, to profess the revealed truth, which is always 
in our power. / 

r^'But seek ye first the kindgom of God, and his righteous- 
ness, and all these things shall be added unto you.'* (Matt. 

( The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by con- 
tributing to the establishment of the kingdom of God, which 
can only be done by the recognition and profession of the 
truth by every man.- 

**The kingdom of God cometh not with outward show; 
neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there ! for behold, the 
kingdom of God is within you.^ (Luke xvii. 20, 21.) 

THE END. 



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THF KINGDOM OF GOD IS 
WITHIN YOU" 



CHT{ISTIANITY NOT AS A MYSTIC TiELIGION 
BUT AS A NEIV THEOT{Y OF LIFE 



TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF 

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY 



CONSTANCE GARNETT 



NEW YORK 

THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 

31 East lyiH St. (Union Square) 



Lb S /'8 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




006 097 6X44 






